Hi
We run a week of mock exams in Feb for any subjects that have an exam in summer (so GCSEs & second year A-levels), and a week in April for any subjects that don't have summer exams.
Having the exams in Feb gives enough time for results to be issued to students, gives them a kick up the backside, and some time to spare to knuckle down for the real things in summer!!!
Exams dept organises and runs the whole thing. We take out the sportshall and a couple of large rooms for students with access arrangements, and we provide all invigilators. The subjects with exams have their teaching timetables suspended for that week. Each subject has only one mock exam and it is scheduled into one of their normal class times (albeit with a 9am or 1.30pm start time) so there are no clashes to resolve. It does mean that for English and Maths GCSEs we will have students in every session during the week but it evens out the numbers and makes it manageable.
Because the mocks we run are happening when the students would normally have a lesson anyway it means that we don't have a shortage of rooms to use should we require them. As the students have two half day lessons per subject a week but only one mock exam per subject it also means that the numbers are never too high in each AM or PM session because we schedule which option block to use for the exam so we can balance the student numbers. We've run this for about 6 years now and it works very well
Regards
Katie.
