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Barriers to Learning: Netflix, Negativity and ‘N’obile phones... (Or ‘How to prepare students for the exam marathon’)


Julie Ashmore works in a Sixth Form in the north east.

I teach A level Literature to A LOT of students in a big sixth form college and I love it. I really really love it.  Like all teachers my job gets harder every year, bigger class sizes, less resources and more pressure to get results.  But since returning to work in August, after 17 years of teaching, I’ve become aware of an ever increasing barrier to my students’ learning and my teaching: my kids have the attention spans of stoned goldfish!
My current first years will sit their exams in July 2019.  Each  exam lasts for 2 ½ hours.  Currently very few of them can manage 15 mins without checking their phones (just to check the time of course!) so how will they mentally and physically be able to cope with the time demands of these exams, let alone applying content in a meaningful way?
We talked this week quite openly about this situation.  Many admitted that homework is not given undivided attention, it has to compete with Netflix boxsets, social media and old fashioned socialising.  When coursework has to be completed it causes such unreal panic and anxiety I should be allowed to use a tranq gun at my classroom door.  And so with this comes masses of negativity and blame.
“I didn't have time to do this.”
“You didn’t give us enough support/help/writing frames.”
“This play is shit anyway.”
“How could you expect me to write this essay and read these chapters?”
And all of this is as result of them being burnt out by the exam factory that is modern education.  By the time I get them from their many secondary schools across the region they are exhausted, mentally and physically.  And don’t believe the myth that teaching in a sixth form is easy because “at least they all want to be there”. Where else would they go? What else would they do?
So how do we help them and help ourselves?

Big picture? We keep campaigning against the exam factory and try and reclaim our education system so that it enriches children’s lives on a daily basis.

Day to day? We lead by example and we listen and recognise that our students have faced a different kind of schooling to most of us.

At parents’ evenings ask parents if they will actively engage in working with their offspring to look after their mobile phones for a set time while they work.  Think of the exams as building up to a marathon and ask students to build up their concentration spans over time, much like completing the couch to 5k app!


And never be afraid to challenge negativity - the examiners couldn’t care less whether the students like what they give them so it’s time to teach them to ‘fake it ‘til they make it’.

Julie Ashmore works in a Sixth Form in the north east.

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