With just 35 school days to go until the GCSE examinations start, staff at Bushey Meads are doing everything they can to support the hard working Year 11 students to prepare as well as they can. With core subject revision sessions on Monday for Maths, Tuesday for English and Wednesday for Science taking place after school every week and regular sessions across all other subjects being offered at lunchtimes and on Thursday and Fridays after school, we would continue to encourage all parents to support their children to attend. Rooms in F Block (F4 and F5) are also being made available and supervised every lunchtime if students want to pack in an extra half an hour of independent revision during the school day.

The Time2Sh9ne and Rising Stars Mentoring programmes are supporting students to set smart targets to maximise progress and attainment and the Passport to the Prom Scheme with the incentive of a reduced price ticket to the prom is encouraging students to complete past papers and attend revision sessions as well.

In addition the Pastoral and SEND Teams are on hand to ensure maximum support is provided where needed. On that note it was great to see our Intervention Manager Mrs Mateides going round the Year 11 Going 4 Great lessons before the recent half term holiday and demonstrating how Finger Tapping can help students reduce anxiety and stress in the run up to the exams.

EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) tapping is a therapeutic tool combining acupressure and psychology to reduce stress, anxiety, and physical pain by tapping on specific meridian points while focusing on emotions. It sends calming signals to the amygdala, bypassing the “fight or flight” response.

Mrs Mateides encouraged the students to have a go at EFT and perhaps consider it as an additional potential helpful tool to use at this crucial time.