It’s 4.30pm on a rainy Tuesday. It’s also half-term and my eldest son has exams next week. But, miracle of miracles, he’s hard at work, revising, and has been for the past hour or so. I didn’t even have to make him do it. My trick? I brought him away on holiday, along with his two younger brothers.
Like many parents at this time of the year I was slightly dreading the school holidays. Revising was non-negotiable for my teenager; the school had emailed its expectations — three hours each weekday, preferably in the mornings, with the weekends off.
Though his brothers, aged ten and seven, didn’t have exams, they would need entertaining. With terrible timing my husband was away with work for the week, so there would be no dividing and conquering. Seemingly I had two choices: book the younger pair into a series of expensive camps that they would inevitably complain about while I spent the week haranguing my eldest and trying to keep all three off the PlayStation, or escape somewhere nice for a few days. I went with the latter option.
I had been quite specific about what I wanted when planning the holiday — somewhere that wasn’t too far from our home in York (nobody wants to spend precious time during their week off in a car) and near beautiful beaches, with good walking options to blow away the cobwebs and indoor activities in case it pelted with rain. A friend and her two daughters, one of whom would also be revising, planned to join us for a couple of nights, so we also needed space (including a quiet desk or table to serve as a workspace); we also wanted to bring our dog.
Brunton Granary — on the 2,500-acre Fallodon Estate between Alnwick and Bamburgh in Northumberland and a couple of hours’ drive from home — seemed to tick all our boxes. The four-bedroom house was recently converted into a holiday home by the Fallodon custodians Mark and Lucia Bridgeman. It is one of nine self-catering properties available to rent on the estate and has a large and airy kitchen-dining-sitting room, a utility room with washing machine and wetsuit-rinsing capacity, a plentiful collection of books and board games and — to my sons’ delight — a basement games room with ping-pong, table football and a huge TV. Each bedroom has desk space and there is also a separate small table with high stools in the sitting area where my son worked. There were even dog treats and a dog bowl waiting for us on arrival.
I’ve stayed in my fair share of holiday homes and this is one of the best — nice enough to stay put when it rains (which, of course, it does) and near enough to beautiful beaches to make the most of sunny days.
Our week soon takes on a gentle rhythm that works for everyone. We lie in then potter around after breakfast while my eldest hits the books. After a dog walk we all head out to one of the nearby beaches by late morning for a couple of hours of kicking a football around, flying a kite or just burying each other in the sand.
A drink and a bag of crisps in the nearest pub is followed by lunch back at the Granary. Afternoons are reserved for more revision, a walk or a swim. We all eat together at about 6pm then play games or watch TV before bed.
We venture further afield on a couple of days. At Alnwick Castle, ancestral home of the Percy family, my boys eschew the option to play quidditch (the castle doubled up as Hogwarts in the early Harry Potter films) but love the maze of mirrors.
• This is the secret to an affordable family holiday
On a magical boat trip from nearby Seahouses to the Farne Islands, about three miles out to sea, we see seals, shags, kittiwakes and puffins — “The seals look like dogs, Mama!” my youngest says delightedly as one bobs its way curiously towards us.
On one particularly rainy day we enjoy a happy hour browsing among the thousands of volumes in Barter Books in Alnwick.
• Our guide to family holidays
However, my usual British holiday militancy — getting everyone out early for at least three activities a day and ticking off all the local attractions — goes out of the window. As does healthy eating — we enjoy marvellous Craster kippers and crab sandwiches at the Ship Inn in Low Newton-by-the-Sea (sandwiches from £3; shipinnnewton.co.uk), plus treats from Sarah’s Ice Cream Parlour in Alnwick (from £2.50; fb.com/sarahsicecreamparlour) and fish and chips from Hook in Seahouses (from £10; fb.com/hookseahouses), all without a vegetable in sight.
No matter, this week is all about the revision. As long as everyone has a daily dose of fresh air and the dog has a good run-around, the rest doesn’t matter so much. Sure, my youngest two probably watch more TV than I would like, but there is no PlayStation to argue over at least, and they get pretty good at table tennis.
As for my eldest? He aces his exams and reckons that he really feels the benefit of the holiday.
Just as we all did. Win-win.
Lucy Denyer was a guest of Crabtree & Crabtree, which has seven nights’ self-catering for eight at Brunton Granary from £1,459 (crabtreeandcrabtree.com)
How to get your child to revise in the holidays
“I feel very positively that my own experiences of revising in the holidays were made better by being in a memorable location,” Henry Faber, co-founder of the mentoring company Oppidan Education, says. “Shaking up the normality is always helpful.” Here are his top tips.
1. Arrange a specific workplace
Faber advises parents to “think about how you can use a location or space to make sure your child feels differently about learning”. He compares setting up a defined workstation for your revising child to an adult having an office. It doesn’t have to be a dedicated room; it can simply mean allocating a certain spot at the dining table for the duration of the holidays. But try to get them out of working in their bedroom if you can. “I don’t think a bedroom — a place to rest and relax — is a particularly conducive space to positive perceptions of learning,” Faber says.
2. Set time limits
Don’t make them work seven days a week; it’s fine to take weekends off. They don’t need to clock in for eight-hour days either; your child also needs a break during the school holidays. “A GCSE Easter holiday should still be really fun and doesn’t need to be torture,” Faber says, warning against children working long days when much of that time is wasted because of a lack of specific goals. “A lot of this is around framing,” he says. “[Revising in the holidays] shouldn’t be seen as something that’s death and disaster, but something manageable.” My son’s school advised that total revision time should be no more than three hours a day, and mornings are better as as your child’s mind will be clearer and they will still have time for fun activities in the afternoons.
3. Set goals
Familiarise yourself with what it is your child has to achieve through their holiday revision and help them to break it into timetabled sessions, with specific goals for each one. “Like an adult in an office with [key performance indicators], you can set really specific targets with what they’re looking to come away from that time with,” Faber says. “Not only does that help you, the parent, to have a sense of involvement, but it negates long, open-ended revision sessions, gives your child a sense of control and means you can also check in to see what’s been done and that your child is making progress.”
4. Work smart, not hard
Well, do work hard, of course, but when setting goals and time limits don’t focus on volume. “It’s about finding a way to work smart,” Faber says. That might mean, for example, having a short session of ten minutes to plan a really good GCSE history essay that is as valuable as writing the essay. Not only is it time smart but will probably help your child far more in an exam scenario.
5. Use a paper and pen
Your child might insist that everything has to be done online, but — particularly if the exam is handwritten — there is value in putting pen to paper, as making visual notes can be a good way to commit things to memory. “There’s much more value in writing things down than just staring at a screen,” says Faber, who points to “that practical sense of learning and muscle memory”, with which writing helps.
6. Don’t go too early on the past papers
It’s tempting to jump the gun, acquire a stack of previous exam papers and set your child the goal of working his or her way through the pile by the end of the holidays. However, it’s best to avoid this, particularly if you’re starting revision with plenty of time before the exams, as you run the risk of exhausting the past papers before your child knows all the content, which will leave them demoralised and knock their confidence for when it is time to do this.
7. Don’t cram
The clue is in the name — revision should be about going over things to lodge them firmly in the brain, rather than learning them for the first time. If your child really has no clue in half their subjects, trying to learn it all in a week is probably a case of too little, too late. Instead, focus on one or two things for them to really get their head around, rather than taking a panicked, scattergun approach.
8. Go on holiday
You don’t even have to organise it yourself. Oppidan partners with the swanky Soneva Fushi resort in the Maldives in running three-week residences included in the cost of a holiday — which means that parents can enjoy a break during key exam times, knowing that their children are getting some one-to-one mentoring while also having fun. This is definitely something to save up for: Soneva Fushi has B&B villas from £1,700; two children under 12 go free as part of the Ultimate Family Offer.
Become a subscriber and, along with unlimited digital access to The Times and The Sunday Times, you can enjoy a collection of travel offers and competitions curated by our trusted travel partners, especially for Times+ members
