GCSE Mocks: A Parent's Guide to Helping Before and After

By Kriss Machnik•8 min read

The most useful things a parent can do for GCSE mocks are simple: help your child revise by testing themselves instead of re-reading, and when the results come home, read the marked paper before you react to the grade.

I've tutored GCSE Maths, Science and English for nine years, and every mock season I see the same thing. Everyone looks at the grade, and the marked paper gets forgotten. This guide covers what mocks are for, how to help in the weeks before, and what to do with the results.

1What a mock is for

A mock is a practice run under real exam conditions. Most Year 11 mocks fall between November and February, and some schools run a second round in February or March, so check your school's dates.

Mocks don't count towards the final grade, but they do matter. Schools use them for predicted grades, which feed into sixth form and college applications, and some use them to decide between Foundation and Higher tier. So it's worth preparing properly, and it's fine if it doesn't go perfectly.

Why the mock grade often looks worse than it is

• There are three to seven months still to go. Mocks are in winter, the real exams are in May and June.
• Not everything has been taught yet. Some marks on the paper were never available to them.
• Grade boundaries are a best guess. Schools borrow past years' boundaries and some nudge them up to be cautious. They'd rather your child is pleasantly surprised in August than coasting in March.
• They've had little practice in an exam hall. The silence, the invigilators and the clock all cost marks the first time, and less the next.

2How to help before the mocks

Set them up at home

• Tick off the specification. It's free on the exam board's website. Print it and let them tick off each topic.
• Plan in small chunks. A timetable, or just "three topics this week". Whatever is realistic.
• Take proper breaks. That means real downtime. Scrolling or doing chores isn't a break.
• Keep a calm study space, with the phone in another room.
• Check the kit early. Don't find out the calculator is dead on the morning of the maths mock.
• Support, don't spoon-feed. Be around, reassure them, and let them own it.

Work, then reward

The hardest part of revision is getting started. This is the method I suggest to almost every family I work with.

1. Set a small, achievable goalSomething they can finish in one sitting. Not "revise History", but "four History 12-mark questions, answered and marked".
2. Let them choose the rewardIdeally a proper break, such as seeing friends on Saturday. Decide it before they start.
3. Reward the effort, not the scoreThe reward is for finishing the task, not for hitting a percentage.

That last step matters. "If I get 70% on this paper I can see my friends" sends the wrong message. "I'll do four 12-markers and mark them, then I'll see my friends" keeps it from feeling like a transaction, and avoids arguments at home.

It sounds almost too simple, but there's good science behind it. Dopamine, the brain chemical linked to motivation, rises when we look forward to a reward, not only when we get it. That's why you plan the reward first. Pair effort with something good often enough and starting work gets easier. I've written more about this in the work-and-reward revision system.

What good revision looks like from the doorway

Much of what looks like revision is information passing in front of their eyes. What works is pulling it back out of their head.

The re-readers in that study also felt more confident, which is why re-reading is so tempting. With practice papers, most students stop after sitting the paper. The marks come from the next three steps: mark it honestly, fix the mistakes, and retry it a week later. You can help by printing the mark scheme and putting the retry date on the calendar. There are more ideas in 5 ways to revise when you have too much material.

The best question you can ask: "Can you teach me?"

If you only do one thing at home, ask them to teach you a topic. Explaining something out loud shows up the gaps straight away, and research suggests students who expect to teach something remember more of it than students who expect a test.

1. "Explain it like I know nothing."
2. "Why does that happen?"
3. "Can you give me an example?"
4. "Which bit are you least sure about?"

Here's what it sounds like: "Osmosis is water moving from where there's loads of it to where there's less… so concentrated to dilute? Or the other way?" You don't need to know which way the water goes. That hesitation tells them exactly what to look up.

You don't need to know the answer. Just listen for the stumble.

3Three things that lose marks on the day

These are marks they can win back without learning anything new.

• Running out of time. The rule of thumb is about a mark a minute, so a 4-mark question deserves about four minutes, not twelve. If they're stuck: circle it, move on, come back. Blank questions at the end of a paper are a clue.
• No working shown. Two students can get the same wrong answer and very different marks. An answer on its own might score 0 out of 3. The same answer with working could score 2.
• Not answering the question. "Describe" means say what happens. "Explain" means say why, so the answer needs a "because". "Evaluate" means both sides and a conclusion. Get them to underline the command word first.

4When the results come home

It's easy to focus on the number, and that usually ends in a row. Get curious about the paper instead.

The grade is the headline. The marked paper is the story.

Read the paper, not the grade

Spend about 20 minutes going through the paper together and sort every lost mark into one of three piles. You don't need to understand the maths. "Did you know this one?" is enough.

That's a made-up but typical example: 27 marks dropped on a Maths paper. Twelve of them, lost to misread questions, missing units or the clock, need no new learning at all.

5Making a plan together

Once you know where the marks went, turn it into a plan. The more specific it is, the more likely it happens.

1. TopicFor example, quadratic graphs. Use the specification checklist before the mocks and the three piles after.
2. MethodFor example, 25 minutes on, 5 off, with a practice paper.
3. First step, and whenThe one everyone skips. "Three questions after school tomorrow", not "some maths this week".
4. RewardTheir choice, for finishing the task. Cinema at 7:30, for example.

Write it down and put it on the fridge. Then check in, don't check up. "How did the quadratics go?" lands very differently from "Have you done your revision?"

?Common questions from parents

One mock is information, not a verdict. If this helped, I post revision videos and advice for students on TikTok at @krisstuition.

Kriss Machnik
Kriss is the founder of KrissTuition and has tutored GCSE Maths, Science and English for nine years. KrissTuition writes GCSE practice papers, mark schemes and revision guides.