Dr Liz Chare, Head of Science and newly appointed Vice Principal, has been going the extra mile to support her students, as she is joining them in sitting selected A-level exams over the next few weeks. A firm believer of practicing what you preach, Dr Chare believes it is important for teachers to understand the pressure and nerves students experience during exams. She has challenged her students to a friendly competition to see if they can beat her. She said: "My students are a very inspiring group and it is really great to be in a position where I am running with them all the way to the exam. Her excellent initiative gained a lot of attention in the local West London area, as documented in Get West London and Ealing Today.
She sat her first Biology exam last week, and had the following to say: “It's a really useful experience sitting the Unit 1 exam. It was quite a surprise to find that in order to have time to answer each question fully there was very little time to process each question. There was absolutely no 'thinking time' to recall facts that were in your distant memory, so I will be emphasising to my students next year just how well they need to know the information if they want to achieve the top grade.
"Secondly, I was really surprised at how stressed I was! I could hear my heart pounding at the beginning of the exam which made it really difficult to absorb all the information in the questions. For my next exam I will be making a bigger effort to remain calm and a greater effort to get more sleep in the days leading up to the exam as there is nothing worse than having to think through tricky questions through a tired head!!"
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