Tel: 020 7584 7987

Who are we?

Nevil Chiles:

Nevil Chiles was born in Birmingham in 1970. He attended Haybridge High School in Hagley in the West Midlands, successfully completing 11 'O' Levels and 4 'A' Levels before leaving school in 1988.

After a year in Australia Nevil attended King's College, London where he read History, graduating in 1992. In the mid 1990s Nevil worked and travelled extensively throughout South East Asia and Australia before becoming involved in education. Nevil worked as a private GCSE tutor to an influential family in Manila in the Philippines before returning to London to take up a full time post in the GCSE Department at Collingham School, Kensington in 1997.

At Collingham Nevil taught History and English at both GCSE and A Level. In 2002 Nevil left Collingham to set up Kensington & Chelsea Tutors Limited.

Dr. Anna Clark:

Anna Clark was born in Stourbridge in 1972. After leaving Mander Portman Woodward (MPW) in Birmingham in 1991 with 4 'A' Levels she went on to the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine to study Medicine. She qualified as a doctor in 1999 and became a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners in 2001. Despite her involvement in Kensington & Chelsea Tutors she continues to work as a GP.

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON!

← Back to Articles

June 2013

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON!

Private tutors reveal their top ten exam and revision tips.

"Keep calm and carry on" is one of the overriding pieces of advice to UK students currently revising for GCSEs, A Levels and end-of-year exams from a survey undertaken in May of 500 private tutors.

The eponymous World War 2 poster message, which has become a widely recognised part of popular culture iconography in recent years, is just one of ten 'tips' offered by tutors attached to online private tuition platform Webtutornet and Kensington and Chelsea Tutors to help guide students through the stressful ordeal of revision and examinations.

The ten tips are as follows:

  1. Stay calm and don't panic whether you're in the midst of revision or within an examination environment
  2. Get a life balance during the exam period by eating well and getting plenty of sleep with early nights. Aim to get up every morning even when you have no exam!
  3. Create a revision plan that involves a clear structure of 40 minutes on and 10 minutes off. Continual intervals from study are essential to learning. One day of revising flat out will negatively affect the following days so spread activity out evenly.
  4. Get hold of past exam papers to run through on a timed basis during revision and try to understand what the examiner is looking for.
  5. Read the question and answer the question! It may seem obvious but ensure your answers are concise, relevant and clearly structured. Your opinion counts but isn't enough on its own. You need to demonstrate your knowledge of a subject.
  6. Do the questions you find easiest first. Don't attempt to do them in the order in which they appear on the paper.
  7. Read as much as possible whether relevant or irrelevant to your exams. Reading is a form of brain training that will help with revision and your levels of concentration during an exam.
  8. Avoid long meandering sentences as nine times out of ten these will act against you. Keep your sentences short and sweet.
  9. Towards the end of your exam, if you have time, reread all of your answers. You are bound to come across a mistake of some description and this is the easiest way to improve marks at the last minute.
  10. Understand how the marking works for each question and find the marks scheme on the exam board's website. There's no point spending lots of time on questions that offer few points to the detriment of more rewarding ones.

Nevil Chiles, who founded Kensington & Chelsea Tutors in 2002 and Webtutornet in 2012, commented: "The tips we received from the tutors surveyed make for interesting reading and undoubtedly reveal that a calm and organised approach to both revision and exams will reap dividends.

"This is the most stressful time of the year for hundreds of thousands of students of all ages and it's therefore important to prepare in the right way," added Nevil who has personally interviewed and vetted over 2000 tutors in the past 11 years.

For more details visit www.kctutors.co.uk