“How many times did golfer Rory McIlroy fail to win the US Masters, in trying to achieve his career Grand Slam of Winning all 4 Major Golf Tournaments, before he won it in 2025?
11 times! So he knows something about coming back from not making the grade and then succeeding!
Did Rory prepare to win the 2025 US Masters
Clearly, he practiced on the course as much as he could to learn as much as he could about the course before the competition started!
How did you get ready for your Maths examinations last summer?
Maybe past paper questions in your note books but probably not completing a number of past papers under examination conditions and then marking them against the examiners mark scheme. Clearly, this is the closest that you will get to completing the real examination paper so this is the first part of the Proven Success Path.
Following through with the golfing analogy, does it matter how you complete the number of shots that it takes to go from the tee to the green and putting it into the hole?
No ! What is required is that you record the corrent number of shots taken to complete each hole and adding up correctly the number of strokes to complete the 18 holes.
Does it matter how you write down your answers on your examination paper? Indeed does it even matter if you write down all of your workings as long as you get the answer right?
Yes! and Yes!! What you write down is extremely important because this is what the examiner will compare to the mark scheme for each question to decide how many marks he can give you. Indeed, if all you did was to write down the right answer, you would fail the paper because you wouldn't get any of the marks for the workings. And the examiner must be able to read what you have written and follow your logic as he only has a certain amount of time to mark the whole of your paper
Okay, I understand, So how do I learn what the examiner is looking for in my answers to get all of the marks?
You need to mark your completed past paper for yourself against the mark scheme to learn exactly what the examiner is looking for and to give yourself the number of marks that you have gained for your written answers
Do I really need to become an examiner - I would just like to do better in this examination than I did last time
With a knowledge of how you gain marks on a Maths paper, you can then answer the question for every question on the examination paper "What is the examiner looking for to get all of the marks on this question so that you can get them?" Learning to think like an examier is a very powerful skill that can then be applied to every future examination that you sit!
Okay, so I've complted the past paper under examination conditions, I've marked it using the examiners mark scheme, what do I need to do now?
You now know how much you know but more importantly what you didn't know. The final step is to fill in the gaps in your knowledge and understanding so that you can answer the present questions correctly and answer other questions on the same topic should they come up on another practice paper or indeed the examination itself!
What about the "In Just Hours" bit, This sounds quite involved?
Well, Daniel went from a C to an A* in just 2 papers and Kelly went from an E to an A in 5 papers, but this was because she didn't have very much confidence in her own abilities that i addressed along the way!
As a Maths student myself, I once found myself at the bottom of the class, not getting the grades that I wanted, much to everyone’s astonishment. Indeed one of my best mates, who is now a doctor, said to me “Mark, What happened?” and my response was “I don’t know!” because I didn’t know because clearly I didn’t know the maths in question.
And to make matters worse, my Maths teacher's sister was my Mother's best friend from Grammar School and my Mother was the best Mathematician in the town! Embarrassing or what? but no one ever made me feel awkward because of my lack of understanding.
This happened when I transitioned from GCSE Maths to AS Maths as it is now and I will admit that I was considering dropping AS Maths to do AS Biology instead alongside Physics and Chemistry.
However, I realised that if I wanted to go anywhere with physics, I would have to be able to do Maths so I didn't quit, I just stuck at it.
Suffice to say, by the time we sat our next set of tests in AS Maths just before Christmas, I went back to the top of the class (as I was at GCSE) and I never looked back. But that shook me so I know how you feel if you didn’t get the grades that you wanted in the summer!
In spite of this shock, inspired by my physics tutor, I went on to be top of High School, the best physicist to come out of my high school to that point in time and I went on to be top undergraduate Physicist at The University of Bristol (that has produced 3 Nobel Prize Winning Physicists - so far!!)
My academic achievements were however put into their correct perspective by my first Headteacher 23 years ago! Standing in his office with my CV in his hand, he looked me straight in the eye and said
"Mark, what’s important now isn’t your performance but theirs”
as he gestured out towards his 1400 students.
Let’s turn that around,
“What’s important now isn’t my performance but yours!”
and that’s why I do what I do!
I even wear a bow tie when I am teaching to remind both myself and my students that I am here to serve you just like a waiter in a restaurant!
Daniel got a grade C in his summer examination and I got him to complete a past paper for me so that I could mark it and grade it before our first tutoring session. He scored a C so nothing had changed since the summer. We then went over the bits that he got wrong or wasn’t able to answer and gave him sufficient of an understanding of the topic that he could answer a question on the same topic if it came up on another examination. Following the first session, he completed a second past paper for me that I marked before our next tutoring session on which he scored a B. We repeated the process of going over the bits that he either got wrong or couldn't do in our second hour together following which he did a third paper for me on which he scored an A*! C to A* in two hours of tutoring input!
Kelly completed a past paper for me and I didn't even grade it because I knew having met her that the real grade would be very demoralising! We started to work through the bits that she couldn’t do but when I asked her even a simple questions, I could wait up to 10 seconds before receiving an answer. At this point I knew that to be successful, I would have to take a gentle “kid glove” approach. By session 4, I was greeted with a smile and by session 5 Kelly managed to score a grade A.
The real ending of this story came to light when I met Kelly’s Mum in the car park of the local Sainsbury’s store in Bridgend. I asked how Kelly was doing only to be told that when Mum and Dad met one of her Sixth Form Teachers at a parents evening, the teacher said that some of the work that Kelly was producing, the likes of which she had never seen before from a year 12 student - Inspiration and Transformation indeed!
Louis had faliied the 11 Plus in Folkestone in Kent which meant that he couldn't go to the Harvey Grammar School with all of his frinds. Louis' Mum made contact with me and asked if there were any way he could get into the Grammar School. Having explained that he could sit the entrance examinations at the end of year 7 and gain entry to the Grammar School as a year 8, I was asked to tutor Louis for these examinations. Starting to get to know and tutor Louis, I discovered that he had an amazing imagination but that his view of sitting an examination was "like being sat in a deep dark dungeon" - no wonder he didn't pass the 11 Plus! Changing the way Louis thought about examinations and teaching him what he needed to know for the Maths, Science and English Examinations, Louis passed the entrance examinations, much to his Mum's delight and joined his friends at The Harvey Grammar School! After he had finished Grammar School, I met him on a management development programme at Barclays Bank in Canterbury!
Having been inspired to achieve the First First in Physics by my physics tutor, who went on to be recognised as one of the best physics teachers in the UK, one of my mentors once said to me
"Mark, Physics only ever lived in your head"
to which I responded
"if physics only ever lived in my head, how come I achieved the way that I did?"
What my mentor then said to me blew me away
"Mark, you achieved what you achieved because success lives in your heart!!
Wow!
Success in examinations isn't really about what's in your head but what's in your heart and my real goal is to inspire success in your heart like it is in mine and hence Inspiring Student Success!
Remembering he failed 11 times to achieve a Career Grand Slam
The lyrics of the chorus of this song say it all - I had to tell my parents in person!
How about a celebration in Cardiff on Frisay 20th December 2025 - the day your results are published?
Do this under silent distraction free examination conditions. When else would you spend nearly 2 hours working in silence on one project to the exclusion of all else. This also develops your mental stamina for the real exam because the final 15 minutes is as important as the first!
Learn to think like an examiner and use the examiner's mark scheme to mark your paper to learn how to get all of the marks for each question and discover what you either got wrong or weren't able to do.
This is the real power of the proven success path - discovering and then learning what you didn't know! Time spent reviewing what you already know wont improve your grades but time invested in discovering and learning what you didn't know is! Being taught all of this by a accomplihed tutor is what will make the difference!
Complete past paper under examination conditions - about 2 hours
Mark past paper against mark scheme and share marks with tutor- about 1 hour.
Attend online tutoring session where tutor will explain those answers that students found difficult - about 1 hour
Bundle types
All of the WJEC GCSE examiner mark schemes for the practice papers that you will be completing
A one hour online tutoring session filling in the gaps in learning across the class. Links for each class will be sent out by email well in advance of each tutoring session
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