Mocks and the sky falling in – Chicken Licken Syndrome
I have written about the mocks before, the top tips of why we do them and how we get through but this year I'd like to write on something slightly different. The "Chicken-Licken-syndrome" where students seem to genuinely feel like the sky is falling in on top of them! The mocks are a test run - you are meant to make mistakes.. that's the whole point of doing them!
For some of The Students at The Homework Club this happens in a more spectacular fashion. I myself did very badly in my mocks as do many students with learning difficulties. As the department of education has not granted who will and will not receive accommodations in their exams, very few if any schools allow these students to sit their exams in a similar environment to how they will in June. We are overwhelmed by the exam hall experience - I'm conducting some research at the moment in why some students are hyper-sensitive and how this can helped. We don't have a reader and hence we read the questions wrong, we take the wrong meaning and we answer a completly different question. Some studnets haven't got to grasp with the whole course in one "bulk" form - they are struglign to put all the secitons together and maybe they haven't covered their best seciton yet! No one tells you how to sit an exam and for some studets who really do need to do a visual map of the answer and the question, this is highly discouraged and implied to be a waste of time when it's not as all - it's a vital way of thinking for them! If you are going to use a laptop maybe you didn't get to do this in the mocks.. there are so many factors as to why students find exams hard.
I call this time of the year "crushing season" because I watch the students who we have built up since September lose complete confidence in their abilities. 
We have to build them up again from the floor. I really question at this stage if the mocks are a good exercise at all? Surely there must be a better way to have a test run?
The sky really isn't falling in and there is loads of time left to fix the mistakes - but it is very hard to show people your mistakes when you are made to feel so bad for making them.
Dr. Naoisé O'Reilly
Our experience being brought to others outside of The Homework Club
A short clip of some of our very valuable findings at The Homework Club
Advantages of the back catalogue
So this weeks theme is evaluations! I can sit in front of students from now until next June to tell them they are improving and they will never believe me... So they need to see it form themselves. The easiest way to do this apart from the evaluations we do at the end of the term where they ask themselves what has changed... what is easier.. what can they now do and so on - is to simply get them to bring in their work from this time last year! They will instantly see how much better they can now write - how much longer their answers are - Simply how much more they know!
Yes it is that easy to boast confidence - we always forget to go back and look where we have come from...it's like going back and reading your old diaries to let you see the journey you have been on....This also ties in nicely with an earlier article I wrote on looking for your mistakes. We only get to know our mistakes when someone shows them to us. By knowing our common mistakes we can learn from them and most importantly for dyslexic spectrum students we can learn to look out for those ones! I know always look for "fro" in my emails - the spell checker never finds it for me - but I do 
Dr. Naoisé O'Reilly
Why The Homework Club is not a “grind” school
So one of the common misconceptions about The Homework Club is that it is just another "grind" school. When I look up the term "grind" in the dictionary it is a word used to describe plodding monotonous routine drudgery associated with swats and nerds. It can also be seen as something that literally grinds and swashes you down.
I have to ask why you would use such a term to describe situation that is suppose to offer help and support to students? Last term I asked the students here to give me key words to describe their experiences at The Homework Club. The words I got back were: helpful, supportive, fun, relaxed, enjoyable, super, colourful, creative and feel more confident.
I was delighted to hear theses words as they are the ones I would aspire to have associated with the project. I think the only thing that "grinds" in The Homework Club are my teeth every time I hear the phrase!
Naoisé
Leaving Cert Results Day 2011
This August marks the third set of Leaving Certificate students to attend The Homework Club and we are starting to see a pattern developing in the approach needed to not only survive the trials of the exams but succeed in your dreams.
The Homework Club takes a more holistic approach to study. “We try to develop the skills for life, explain’s Naoisé” Before starting with each student together we assess their strengths, aptitudes and potential to guide the students towards an achievable goal, one they desire and enjoy. “We feel everyone is not only good at something but can use this to do anything, says Naoisé”
We don’t believe in cram learning and unnecessary stress, explains Naoisé. The best analogy I can give you is making an omelette. If you wanted to make an omelette you wouldn’t worry about what goes in to it, you just simply open the fridge and see what’s to hand. We never worry about learning off cookbooks. For everyday meals we simply know from experience what works and may just check a few details like the temperature and cooking time. Study is exactly the same regardless of the subject. If you understand it and can relate to the material in a way there is no need to learn off endless information. You simply need to develop your own skills to remember the important details like the cooking time! The rest will come naturally.
Similarly in this current climate it’s possible that you will get slightly challenging exam papers in June. This has happened for a number of years now and seems to coincide with the increased pressure in the education system. We try to develop coping strategies in our students so they can survive in these situations. To go back to our omelette analogy, you should find yourself in a position in the exams to simply open the fridge in your mind and pull out whatever ingredients you need. Being able to stay calm and focused, work your way out of the situation and relate what you do know to the questions you are being asked. These are not only skills for the Leaving Certificate but for life after. We have seen almost all of our students thrive in the last three years with this very simple outlook.
