{"id":8530,"date":"2023-06-22T10:51:48","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T09:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/?p=8530"},"modified":"2023-06-22T14:12:19","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T13:12:19","slug":"breaking-down-and-planning-big-tasks-e-g-for-exam-revision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2023\/06\/breaking-down-and-planning-big-tasks-e-g-for-exam-revision.htm","title":{"rendered":"Breaking down and planning big tasks (e.g. for exam revision)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In common with many young people in households across England and Wales, for the last few weeks, both my sons have been taking their end-of-school exams (Scottish schoolchildren finished theirs a few weeks ago).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My youngest son had more than 20 exams for his GCSEs; my eldest had eight for his A-Levels. On the lead up to these (and between them), there was a lot of revision to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating a plan<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Back when they were sitting mock\/trial exams, we noticed that schools don’t teach young people how to plan. At least not based on my experience of two state secondary schools in Milton Keynes and Northampton. They might provide a list of topics, or even a per-subject “revision timetable” but my wife realised fairly early on that our sons could just see some dates, and a massive task ahead of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we sat them down, and helped to worth things through. Using Excel of course (other Project Management tools are available, but probably overkill)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. First, look how many weeks there are until the exams. The days are your columns. Use borders\/shading to see the weeks and weekends.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Then, look at the subjects you need to cover. Those “swimlanes” are the rows. Break each swimlane into 3 rows: daytime; after school; evening.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Then block out the time for actual school, part-time work, sports activities, holidays, etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. You can now see the amount of time that’s available for revision\/study and populate each spare block with one or more topics to cover within each subject row.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    I expected some push-back, but was amazed how positively they took on the advice (to the extent that they seemed to work it out for themselves and created their own plans when it came to the final exams).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It’s simple project management!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    What we taught them to do was effectively basic project management. It’s effectively using a Gantt Chart to illustrate the schedule for completing a bunch of tasks, along with the resource availability and constraints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This is a life skill but also a business skill. It amazes me that this isn’t taught in schools (even pretty good ones). Or perhaps it is, but it’s lost in the teenage air of nonchalance!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Featured image by\u00a0Eric Rothermel<\/a>\u00a0from Unsplash<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In common with many young people in households across England and Wales, for the last few weeks, both my sons have been taking their end-of-school exams (Scottish schoolchildren finished theirs a few weeks ago). My youngest son had more than 20 exams for his GCSEs; my eldest had eight for his A-Levels. On the lead … Continue reading Breaking down and planning big tasks (e.g. for exam revision)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[768,38],"tags":[791,559],"class_list":["post-8530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-inane-waffle","tag-exams","tag-project-management"],"yoast_head":"\nBreaking down and planning big tasks (e.g. for exam revision) - markwilson.it<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Teaching our teenagers how to break down big tasks (for exam revision)... it's basic project management - and a life skill!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2023\/06\/breaking-down-and-planning-big-tasks-e-g-for-exam-revision.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Breaking down and planning big tasks (e.g. for exam revision) - 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Microsoft\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s NDA prevents me from commenting on the contents of the exam but after my last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Certification\"","block_context":{"text":"Certification","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/certification"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":952,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2007\/11\/passed-microsoft-certified-technology-specialist-exam-70-624.htm","url_meta":{"origin":8530,"position":1},"title":"Passed Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist exam 70-624","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Friday 23 November 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I've just come out of a Prometric testing centre after taking the Deploying and Maintaining Windows Vista Operating System and 2007 Microsoft Office System Desktop exam (exam 70-624).\u00a0 I'm please to say that I passed - with a 100% score - but I feel cheated somehow. 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VMware's non-disclosure agreement prevents me from saying anything about the exam itself but I can say that it involved a lot of preparation and this was my strategy: Most importantly, get some experience of working with VMware products (I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Certification\"","block_context":{"text":"Certification","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/certification"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6845,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2017\/01\/linkedin-endorsements-not-worth-paper-written-itil-foundation-exam-study-tips.htm","url_meta":{"origin":8530,"position":3},"title":"Why LinkedIn endorsements are meaningless (and some ITIL Foundation exam study tips)","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Tuesday 10 January 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"According to my LinkedIn profile, 25 people have endorsed me for IT Service Management skills. Until last month* my entire knowledge of IT Service Management came from watching Karl McCarthy present at the Northampton branch of the BCS, which does leave me wondering about the value of LinkedIn endorsements... ...still,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":780,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2007\/05\/passed-microsoft-certified-technology-specialist-exam-70-262.htm","url_meta":{"origin":8530,"position":4},"title":"Passed Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist exam 70-262","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Friday 4 May 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I missed the announcement, but at some stage in recent years, Microsoft revamped its IT Professional certification scheme. It seems as though I still qualify as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) for both the NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 tracks; although I never did get around to upgrading my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Certification\"","block_context":{"text":"Certification","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/certification"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1316,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/12\/passed-microsoft-certified-technology-specialist-exam-70-649.htm","url_meta":{"origin":8530,"position":5},"title":"Passed Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist exam 70-649","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Friday 19 December 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Phew! Another one down - earlier today I passed the Microsoft exam for upgrading from Windows Server 2003 MCSE to Windows Server 2008 Technology Specialist (70-649), which takes me one step closer to updating my Microsoft certification from MCSE (on Windows NT 4.0, 2000 and Server 2003) to MCITP: Enterprise\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Certification\"","block_context":{"text":"Certification","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/certification"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8530"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8534,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8530\/revisions\/8534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}