By Olivia Archibald, Epsom College Malaysia

At Epsom College Malaysia, our PD focus for the beginning of Term 3 was ‘Modelling for Exam Preparation.’ We chose this focus because as exam season approaches, students are often left to work independently, completing exclusively self-directed revision. However, many students are not fully equipped with the tools required to complete exam questions effectively. Here at Epsom, we have many diligent students; however, they often think the best approach is to plough through past papers. These students frequently have an over-reliance on mark schemes and cannot discern which parts of their answers are meeting the success criteria of the exam board. Our recent professional development session offered a more impactful alternative to unstructured, independent revision. We want our teachers to provide ‘guided practice’ rooted in explicit modelling and active teacher-student interaction.

The concept of ‘guided practice’ is best explained by Tom Sherrington, who says, “modelling… it’s all in the handover.” Sherrington states that learning is not an instantaneous exchange of knowledge from teacher to students. Like a baton exchange in a relay race, successful learning depends on the receiver getting a firm grip. This handover from explicit modelling to student independence is rarely a single step; instead, it requires a carefully scaffolded process where responsibility is gradually shared. Guided practice is something that teachers use every day; for example, the ‘we do’ phase of ‘I do, we do, you do.’ However, our session aimed to demonstrate that guided practice is still needed even in the latter stages of the learning journey, not just when students are learning new content. Students need to be shown explicitly how to revise and use correct exam techniques.

Therefore, using Sherrington’s ideas, we reframed exam preparation not as independent practice, but as guided practice. Teachers don’t just model exam questions; they actively involve students in constructing the answer. Teachers do this in a variety of ways, such as questioning students during the model to facilitate co-construction. Examples include: “What are the keywords in this question?”, “What is the structure we use to answer these types of questions?”, “What did I do in this step?”, “Why did I write this?”, or “What do I do next?” At each stage of completing the exam question, the teacher gives students the opportunity to think first before modelling. Ensuring students are actively thinking is a core component of guided practice.

One specific application of guided practice for exam preparation is delivering ‘Walk and Talk’ Mock Exams. At Epsom, students in Years 10–13 experienced a ‘Walk and Talk’ mock in the Exam Hall. The training aimed to ensure teachers delivering these mocks were able to provide guided practice that involved active student thinking, rather than passive copying of teacher-worked examples.

A core part of all our in-house professional development is providing live models and giving teachers the time and opportunity within the session to rehearse or plan forward. This ensures that professional learning is not just theoretical but immediately actionable. During the session, three teachers in three subjects (Maths, Geography, and Politics) modelled a ‘Walk and Talk’ mock under a visualiser. Teachers were treated like students in a condensed five-minute model of what guided practice for exam preparation looks like in each of these subjects. While there were subject-specific differences, all three models were aligned with the following steps for delivering ‘Walk and Talk’ mocks:

Step 1: Clear Purpose. Thoughtfully choose the question(s) to focus on. Select the worst-answered questions or those where a specific exam technique/structure is required.

Step 2: Narrate Thinking. Explicitly model your thinking aloud to show how you understand/make sense of the question. Model the questions you would ask yourself or provide students with a list of questions to consider. Set out the steps, success criteria, and required structure.

Step 3: Provide the Model. Use live modelling or a pre-prepared (complete or partial) model while narrating your thinking.

Step 4: Student Interaction/Co-construction. Provide opportunities for students to interact with the answer or check their understanding.

Option 1: Discuss next steps, then have students attempt the section.

Option 2: Students complete a partially finished model.

Option 3: Teacher and students co-construct (e.g., one paragraph each).

Step 5: Reflection. Deconstruct the model by drawing attention to specifically how it meets the marking criteria. Provide opportunities for students to self-regulate (e.g., “What was missing?” such as knowledge, problem-solving, analysis, explanation, or statistics).

In summary, rather than leaving students to navigate exam preparation independently, we should be providing guided practice. Teachers should be modelling expert thinking, scaffolding practice, and giving students the opportunity to actively think, thereby facilitating a gradual handover to complete independence. Finally, the ‘Walk and Talk’ mocks were popular among students, with 91% stating they found the process ‘very useful’ or ‘quite useful.’