Reflecting on my year 12's exams

This term, my seniors have been busy preparing for practice exams.  We have looked at a complicated topic like Israel and Palestine and picked it apart in a hope that it makes sense to them and although I feel they know the context quite well now, the writing of it is something that I feel definitely needs more work.

Of the 17 students entered for the exam, 3 of them didn't sit it, and of the 14 who did, although they attempted it only 7 of them passed.  I was disappointed with the result and talked to my co-teacher CC, who helped teach and mark the exam, about it.  I could see in their writing that they still needed to structure their ideas better and that they lacked depth and insight.  CC said the students wrote like it was a 'brain dump', they just tried to get everything out on the page without double triple checking the questions or the exam paper. 

I talked to the kids and they generally felt like they were a bit lost and weren't sure what to do.  I also sent out a survey to follow this up and to help me understand what was needed to be done to support the kids better.

Here are some of the questions I asked my kids:

My next steps are to sit down with each student and talk about what they need to do to improve in their writing and to look at more effective strategies around essay structures to help them to feel more confident in their writing.