Below is an example of an article that can be put on a company’s website and then advertised to teachers as being available, as a way of bringing interested teachers to the website.
It doesn’t directly promote the company’s products, but it can bring school managers who rarely respond to advertising to the website, and ultimately introduce them to your company and what you sell.
It is a technique of advertising that some companies use to great effect, but which many ignore, usually claiming that all promotional work should be about getting a sale immediately.
However, my experience is that both approaches can work, and by using each one on different occasions one can expand the number of people who will respond to one’s advertising.
But, it should be remembered that this is just one example of how this approach can work – it will be different for each company depending on what it sells.
If you would like to know more please email Stephen@schools.co.uk or call 01604 880 927.
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A useful advertising variant which can draw potential customers closer to your company
This short article that follows suggests eight things that students really ought to know about revision, but which many students forget. It is free for you to copy and hand out to students in printed form if you wish – and of course you can amend it to make it more relevant to what you sell – although I would council against.
It is also intended as an example of how one can use the process noted above of supplying teachers with helpful information, and thus drawing them closer to the company.
There’s no charge or any hidden obligations, although we do hope that as a result of reading this you might want to have a chat with us about how a similar piece could be produced for your company, which could itself help develop teacher awareness of your company and your products.
The piece is written so that schools could put it on their website or give it to parents to pass on to their children as they approach exams at 16 or 18.
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Eight ways to make your revision more effective
1: Be realistic about what you know
Many students approaching GCSE and A level exams over-estimate how much they know, how much they will recall in an exam, and how much they’ll be able to write during the exam – and it is something that applies across many subjects.
So your first job, as exams approach, is to be clear about the bits of the syllabus you are weak on, and where you feel the need to improve.
And if you aren’t sure what parts of the syllabus you’ve not yet mastered, get a couple of sample papers, and try them out. If you find there are areas of the syllabus where you feel you are struggling, focus your attention on those as you come to revise for the exam.
2: Be realistic about exam technique
Take a sample or past exam paper, see how long you have for each question, choose one question, and without looking anything up, and without spending more than five minutes planning your answer, write an answer in the amount of time allowed.
The point is, if you couldn’t finish in time, or your finished with lots of time to spare, you might have a problem. You should be using the time allowed by the exam almost to the full – with maybe five minutes left to read through your answer and correct any errors you spot.
3: Teach yourself
Just imagine that you have a lesson to teach on the subject you are revising. You are teaching students who know very little about the subject so you’ll have to be clear, and cover all the angles.
The point about this exercise is that sorting out the information on a particular topic into a meaningful order so that the imaginary recipient of your talk will know what’s what, is really good for you. This is a much, much better way of revising than simply reading through your notes, because it makes you think about the subject, rather than just read about it.
4: Teach the topic to a friend
Take a topic you are moderately knowledgeable about, and then spend a few days preparing a short “lesson” on that topic and then deliver it to a friend. Then do it the other way round with your friend teaching you.
This may seem a strange experience and both you and your friend might need to practice this a few times to stop it feeling too odd, but if you can teach each other a topic, that in itself is helpful. If then you can also teach each other a topic and then discuss the lesson where the “student” in the activity then tells the “teacher” what she/he didn’t understand, that can lead to an interesting discussion. Even if the “teacher” can’t explain the issue more fully it at least shows the “student” that this is a problem area, and needs to be resolved.
5: Sleep after learning
It is often said that a good night’s sleep is important before an exam. But better still, if during the weeks leading up to the exam you revise at the normal time for studying, when your brain is active and you are not tired, and then do a very quick revision of what you have learned just before you go to sleep, you are more likely to remember what you have learned in the morning.
This is not an activity for the last few nights before the exam, but something that should be tried a couple of months before the exam. It doesn’t work for everyone but for some people it can help, and if it does for you, keep using the technique and also practice using the information learned the night before, the next day.
Finally, write out some questions about the topic and then take your own test the following day. Both writing out the questions and taking your own test can be really helpful.
6: Have a revision plan
Most people feel some anxiety in the build up to an examination, and one possible way to overcome this is to have a practical revision plan. As an experiment, set out a topic or theme you are going to revise for say 20 minutes one evening, and then try and follow your plan. That way you’ll see just how much you can revise in one evening. Then draw up a revision plan for a topic or subject to use over four or five evenings, and see if you can keep to the plan, and if it helps you learn.
7: Share your thoughts with your friends
Organise a half an hour session with a two or three close friends who share your desire to make the most of their revision, and talk about what you feel is going well and what is a problem. You might find it difficult to organise a meeting with friends which sticks to the subject if you haven’t done this before, but this in itself is good practice as bringing people together for a specific task is something you may well be called upon to do a lot in the future.
8: Find your inner confidence
Be positive as you go into the exam. If you know well in advance that is not going to be easy, discuss with your family or friends how it is possible for you to build up your confidence.
One of the best ways to do this to try out entering the exam room with confidence. Some people use a lucky charm, some repeat a phrase over and over, some have a different method.
What you should avoid in this approach is trying to give yourself a confidence boost once, finding it doesn’t work, and then stopping. There are many ways of doing this, but each person is different, so you really need to persevere on this idea. But if you can get it right it can really help you.