Key Ideas from the community
- Incentivise participation: Reward and recognise students for their efforts.
- Embed Access GCSEPod into routines: Make it a natural part of students' study habits.
- Collaborate as a staff team: Share strategies and build a culture of success.
- Tailor usage to needs: Use data insights to personalise and target interventions.
Best practices: Inspiration from leading schools
A weekly programme of KS4 revision homeworks was drafted to cover all GCSE content throughout the year. We called it ‘PodWork!’ Each week, students were assigned a 45-minute revision task comprising a Podlist and MCQs that were produced by modifying the ready-made assessments. Uptake was fantastic, as students valued the ‘nudge’ to get into revision habits. They also appreciated the ease of access via phone/tablet. Engagement was simple to track via ‘monitor and manage’ and allowed us to issue rewards/sanctions as appropriate. We were also able to use data to track trends in knowledge gaps.
Diamond geezers from Dover Court International School
At Dover Court International School, Adam Goold, Assistant Head and GCSEPod lead, held a GCSEPod Launch Competition where they monitored usage from logins, Pods watched, and diamonds collected in Check & Challenge. He shared a pre-recorded video award ceremony with their form tutors to play in their classes, congratulating winners and displaying certificates recognising their students’ outstanding efforts.
Winners included Top Podders and Diamond Geezers from Years 9, 10, 11, and DCIS House Champions with total streams. This competition has encouraged students to use GCSEPod for independent learning, revision, and supportive homework.
To ensure a new digital resource becomes embedded successfully, we assign a strategic lead in each academy and provide a forum to ensure excellent communication between the leads, myself, and the platform. This way, best practice is shared, and new ideas are developed from on-the-ground results. As the strategic lead for the trust, I can see where different approaches in one academy may work for another. We model best practice too; for example, this year we have run several trust-wide inter-academy competitions, which in turn encourage individual academies to host their own.
3 steps to success from The Baines School
“We have adopted a three-strand approach:
- As a brilliant revision tool.
- Secondly, we see it as a valuable catch-up tool for identifying learning and knowledge gaps and plugging them through things like Check and Challenge, assignments, and the Boost Playlists.
- Thirdly, we’re using GCSEPod to help staff save curriculum time. We’ve missed valuable time in the classroom since March 2020, and as a result, time is currently at a premium, so we’re heavily utilising GCSEPod for flipped learning.”
Antony Mycock, The Baines School
The 3-5 technique from St Joseph’s College
Nicole Hormer from St Joseph’s College shared that they assign 3 Pods for students to watch weekly. They then ask the students to create 5 bullet points for each Pod in a revision journal. This means that students then have a revision book ahead of time which they can return to before their exams. It’s a great way of giving students the independence to learn and revise, as well as identifying weaknesses.
Plan your pod programme from Blackburn Central High School
“We give all students (from KS3 – KS4) 30 minutes in the day (once a week) to access GCSEPod, with a focus on English, Maths, and Science. This programme of study is monitored and managed over a termly basis, allowing students to explore areas of weakness and reinforce their learning, with certificates and rewards (e.g., iPad) given to recognise top users.
GCSEPod is targeted to our pupils in the following ways:
- Year 8 – Year 9 use the ‘Get Ready for KS4’ tool to boost and supplement their learning in preparation for the coming years.
- Year 10 – 11 have bespoke playlists created by the Heads of Department that map over the curriculum taught in the classroom, differentiated for higher and foundation levels. Reports are shared with parents via ParentApp and Google Classroom to build healthy competition in line with the school ethos ‘Aspire and Achieve.’”
Raja Farooq, Blackburn Central High School with Crosshill
Way back Wednesdays from The Grange Academy
Helen Bate from The Grange Academy has shared that they do ‘Way Back Wednesday,’ where her students will have a revision morning using the Student Learning Activities for 20 minutes, focusing on a topic they are learning. This helps students to revise outside of school, and by using the Student Learning Activities, it helps to embed knowledge even further.
Club Pod from Frederick Gough School
Mick Dalton from Frederick Gough School explains how they hold a regular ‘Night Club’ student session where they talk about GCSEPod, how to revise, and how to prepare for exams. It gives them a chance to ask questions and become more familiar with GCSEPod to support their independent revision.
We asked the previous year’s Year 11 to record a video of how they used GCSEPod for the new Year 11s to inspire them! Last year we also had drop-in sessions, and had students create videos sharing what they liked and if they had difficulties using GCSEPod. I would then record video responses for them to help them. This year we’ve asked Subject HoDs to create a plan of action for GCSEPod and will share teach & assess tips in staff meetings biweekly.
League of champions from Putteridge High School
“We identified a large cohort of boys who were underperforming across a range of subjects. Myself and the Deputy Headteachers split the boys into two groups. Each boy picked a football team to represent them. Then, alongside the UEFA Champions League, we created a group stage where each boy played each other (on the number of Pods watched) within their group. This eventually led to quarter, semi, and finals for the most Pods watched, with the overall group/team taking the trophy. This had a massive impact, not only on the boys' usage but also the school’s usage overall.”
Scott Stanyer, Putteridge High School
Pizza party! From Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School
“In the run up to the GCSE exams, we started a “Get your grades up” club for Year 11 and we promoted GCSEPod quite heavily. Those who attended all sessions and had high usage of GCSEPod were invited to a lunchtime pizza party. We even had posters of the pizza delivery person (our Head of Year!) around the school to create a buzz.”
Kenneth Laing, Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School
Motivate day from Mount Carmel Roman Catholic High School
As the GCSEPod Leader, I asked curriculum leaders to send me 1 question each that the students could find the answer to on GCSEPod. I then set up stations with headphones and the students had to answer the questions after listening to Pods. There was a short feedback form to fill out at the end and students enjoyed the session while usage soared.”
Gillian Thompson, Mount Carmel Roman Catholic High School
Send your teacher shopping from Holly Lodge Girls’ College
“Send your teacher shopping was designed as an interform competition where the form with the highest usage per pupil got an afternoon hot chocolate and cake session and their form tutor got vouchers for Christmas shopping. By the end the vast majority of pupils had accessed GCSEPod on 20 or more occasions with some pupils having accessed many hundreds of times. The scores on the doors were read out weekly at assembly. Once completed the students enjoyed a good chocolate and cake session!”
Richard Clift, Holly Lodge Girls’ College
In the 20/20 challenge, the first 50 students to download 20 Pods and stream 20 Pods got a small prize. The competition more than doubled usage over a 2-month period!”
King and queen of GCSEPod from The Studio School
“Each week in assembly we have the King and Queen of GCSE Pod (those with the most engagement). We bought inflatable crowns from amazon and made two of the best seats the thrones. On the thrones we place a cupcake and a hot chocolate. The cost was little and the students try so hard to be king or queen! There is a bigger prize at the end of the year but the competition to wear a crown and eat cake never ceases to amaze me!”
Jill Davies, The Studio School
Are you up for the challenge? From Denefield School
“One of our key priorities is closing the gender gap and to help with this we’ve launched an apprentice style “Are you up for the Challenge?” incentive for students with girls on one team and boys on the other. Each week the groups compete for prizes based on the best attendance, most house points and of course GCSEPod usage among other criteria.
Boys were the top users last week and when a side takes over there is a fantastic buzz in school and the atmosphere is positively charged, motivating the students to really do their best. The challenge really taps in to the power of peers and the groups are extremely encouraging and supportive towards each other. Next month whoever wins over all will get an hour to do an activity of their choice, they could watch a film or play Rugby it’s completely up to the team.”
Melissa West, Denefield School
Skip the lunch queue from Bede Academy
“The top streamer of the week is given a GCSEPod pin badge which they need to wear. If the Lead spots them wearing their badge the following week, they are then allowed to choose a friend and they can both skip the lunch queue for that day!”
Shayne Elsworth, Bede Academy
Engage parents with usage cards from Dormers Wells High School
To help with Parental Engagement, Dormers Wells High School hand out Usage Cards to parents on Parent’s Evening detailing their child’s use of GCSEPod. Yatish Parmar, GCSEPod Lead for the school uses the Manage Groups area to work out the average number of Pods watched by their students (this can be done as all students or a specific Year Group), he adds this figure to the card and then merges in each student’s individual usage, along with their username and when they last logged in. Yatish also documents how many days it has been since the student has logged in and what their difference is between the average number of Pods and their actual number of Pods watched.
Yatish Parmar, Head of IT & Computing, Dormers Wells High School
POD-O-METER! From Lea Manor High School Performing Arts College
A beautiful Pod-O-Meter sits in the KS4 office and in each form room at Lea Manor High School, so students can track their progress towards their Pod target! Fully laminated, the students can colour in their progress as they aim for the top of the meter. This superb idea came from Rose Bloom and Lynn Streetem-Smith who note:
“We have created a leader board for the Y11 form groups. It is up in the KS4 office. A photo will be taken and sent to all Y11 form tutors (a bit of healthy competition!) All Y11 Pod-o-meter’s are up now. I am also working on Y10 – they will also have a leader board in the KS4 office.”
The GCSEPod Leader at the school, Karen Corcoran, has noticed a significant rise in usage as a result of this initiative after only a couple of weeks.
Karen Corcoran, Lea Manor High School Performing Arts College, Bedfordshire
Draw a Pod! From Swanhurst School
Swanhurst School’s Science department have been using GCSEPod in a very imaginative way. After teaching a topic, the teacher asks the class to design their own Pod (through drawing and writing), containing all the relevant information, including, key words, facts and images. Once the students have created their own Pod, the teacher then plays the class the actual GCSEPod Pod and asks them to compare what they’ve created. It’s a great way of identifying if students have missed out anything important and a way of ensuring they never forget.
Catherine Merrick, Swanhurst School
We had huge success with the Donut Challenge! We sent out a Diagnostic Letter to all parents after PPE (mock) exams which highlighted insecure areas and which Pods to watch to fill those knowledge gaps. We then set all Year 11 the challenge of logging in and watching a minimum number of those Pods. Those that completed the challenge got a donut! We ordered 175 donuts from Asda for £25 so it didn’t break the bank. Our Year 11 activation rate rose from 71% to 84%!
Why your school needs Access GCSEPod
Schools using Access GCSEPod are unlocking incredible potential in their students. From creative competitions to structured programmes, these innovative strategies deliver proven results, with an average grade boost of 1.5 grades per student. Whether you’re looking to enhance revision, save curriculum time, or empower independent learning, Access GCSEPod is your ultimate solution.
Join the GCSEPod revolution today and see the difference for yourself!
Get in touch now to bring this game-changing resource to your school.
