How to check your child's progress when you do not know the subject

Most parents learn how preparation is going from mock results and school reports. Both arrive late. By the time a mock shows a problem, a term may have passed, and a single grade says little about why.

You also cannot turn the mark on one practice paper into a grade. Grade boundaries, the marks needed for each grade, are set for each exam series and change from one series to the next. A percentage on a practice paper is useful for spotting a trend over several weeks, not for predicting a result.

Real preparation, though, leaves signs every week. You can check them without knowing any Chemistry.

1. Papers done on the clock

Good preparation includes past papers sat under exam conditions: the real time limit, no notes and no stopping. Ask how many your child did this week, in which subjects, and whether they finished in time. If the answer is none for several weeks, especially close to the exam, it is worth a conversation.

2. Marks lost by topic

After a paper is marked, your child should be able to tell you where the marks went, by topic: "I lost six marks on electrolysis and four on moles." A child who can only say "I got 62%" has not looked closely yet. Over a few weeks, the same topics should come up less often.

3. Whether old mistakes get cleared

One of the most useful revision habits is going back to wrong answers and redoing them until they are right. Ask to see the list of mistakes, on paper or on screen. Is it getting shorter? Are old items being crossed off, or does the list only grow?

Choose a fixed time each week, such as Sunday evening, and keep it short. Ten minutes is enough.

1. Two minutes: what was done. Which papers or topics this week, and which of them were timed?
2. Three minutes: where the marks went. Pick one subject. Which topics lost the most marks?
3. Three minutes: one mistake explained. Ask your child to choose one mistake from their list and explain it to you as if you were the student. If they can say why the right answer is right, it is probably fixed. If they cannot, it stays on the list.
4. Two minutes: next week. Agree one or two things to do, and write them down.

You do not need to follow the science to hear whether an explanation is clear and confident, or vague and hesitant.

Questions that help:

• "Which topic cost you the most marks this week?"
• "Show me one question you got wrong and now understand."
• "Did you finish the paper in time?"
• "Is there anything you have asked about and still do not get?"

Questions and habits that tend not to help:

• "How many hours did you study?" It measures presence, not progress.
• "What grade will you get?" Nobody can know that from one paper.
• Comparisons with brothers, sisters, cousins or classmates.
• Checking every evening. Once a week at a fixed time feels like support; every evening feels like being watched.

Talk to the school or the tutor if you see any of these for more than a couple of weeks:

• the list of mistakes keeps growing and old items are never cleared;
• no timed papers, especially as the exam gets close;
• the same topic keeps losing marks and your child cannot say why;
• your child avoids the subject altogether, or seems very anxious.

Take what you have seen with you: the topics, the papers and the list. A teacher can act on that far more quickly than on "my child is struggling". If your child's worry seems to be about more than the exam, talk to the school or a counsellor as well.

There is no separate parent account. Sit with your child and open their account together. Three places are worth a look:

• The paper lights. On each subject's list of past papers, every paper your child has sat carries a light. Green means everything correct. Yellow means some mistakes. Red is the one your child sets: after checking an answer, they said it still does not make sense. Red is not a bad score. It is the list worth talking about.
• Practice history. Recent sessions, each with its date, its type (such as a timed paper, a topic drill or a mock test) and its score, plus the weak topics in each subject.
• My mistakes and the revisit list. Questions whose most recent answer was wrong, and questions your child has said they still do not understand. Both should get shorter over time.

The revisit list also makes a good agenda for a tutor or teacher. For the method your child can follow, see our guide on how to practise past papers.