“I felt my son should have been sent a paper copy of all material.
I would still like this to happen.
In the pre-course information it was not made clear that he would require the handbooks to complete the course successfully.
I also get the topics should of been edited in light of the advanced information.”
Hi Katherine,
Thanks for your feedback. I’ve responded to your comments about the handouts in your other review. Our Easter GCSE course timetables were adapted to take into consideration the advanced information. We added a purple box on the course page on our website which explained how we had adapted the timetable and also linked to a PDF where we colour-coded topics - using a traffic light system - according to the advanced information so it was clear how we had decided to adapt the timetables.
For GCSE sciences, AQA categorised topics into:
- Major focus of exam (green)
- Not assessed (red)
- May come up in the exam (amber)
Our tutors didn’t teach any topics which were 'not assessed'. They then taught topics which were either a major focus or could otherwise come up in the exam as AQA said: “Topics not explicitly given in any list may appear in low tariff questions or via ‘linked’ questions. Linked questions are those that bring together knowledge, skills and understanding from across the specification”. For Biology, a lot of content was removed. For Chemistry, there were only two subtopics which were taken out (2.4 Bulk and Surface Properties of Matter including Nanoparticles and 9.2 Carbon Dioxide and Methane as Greenhouse Gases) so our timetable remained largely unchanged.
Just in case this information was missed before booking, we also added an A4 PDF to the Google Classroom explaining how we had adapted the timetable. And, we added a PDF where we mapped out the advanced information with links to our free revision resources on physicsandmathstutor.com so students could streamline their revision. We are sorry you missed all this information but I’m not sure what more we could have done.
Our handouts included resources for the whole specification as AQA said in their advanced information “It is advised that teaching and learning should still cover the entire subject content in the specification so that students are as well prepared as possible for progression to the next stage of their education.‘ We wanted to give students resources to help them revise the full specification in case they decided to pursue their GCSE subjects at A Level. We hope this clears up any confusion. We hope your son enjoyed the courses and found them useful. - Michelle
“The information was useful but 6 hours was too long to try and maintain my attention. Shorter days for a longer period would have been more effective”
Hi Abbie, thanks for attending our 4-day pure course. We're sorry you struggled to concentrate for the whole thing. Our crash courses are intense and aim to cover a lot - we want to give students an overview of the whole specification, fill in gaps in knowledge and practice exam technique. Alongside an hour's lunch, our tutors give lots of short breaks in the morning and afternoon to help aid student concentration.
In terms of lengthening the course, we have looked into this but feel that most students wouldn't want to dedicate more than 4 days of their Easter holidays to revising one subject. Other course providers tend to have 4-day courses too. We are glad you found the course useful. We hope your exams went well. Good luck on results day! - Michelle
“First of all I would like to thank PMT Education to offer such a great opportunity as I have learned and enjoyed my courses a lot. I look ahead to take part again in any future courses set by PMT Education.”
“Maths course was good but further maths the teacher did not explain anything just simply wrote down the answers. I didn’t learn a thing. Maths teacher was much more engaging and Talked through her answers.”
Hi Georgia, thanks for your feedback. We are glad you found our A-level mechanics course engaging. We are sorry that you didn’t find the further mechanics course as useful. This is the first time we’ve run a further mechanics course and our tutor gave us feedback after the course, saying that due to the longer format of further maths questions it was difficult to explain the answers to the questions and fit within the timings of the day. We are going to look again at the timetable to see how this can be resolved for next year. We hope your exams went well, good luck on results day! - Michelle
“My son’s teacher recommended PMT as a great resource for past papers etc and we ended up finding and doing the biology revision course that ran over the Easter break. The website is excellent. So many free resources to use and really easy to access them all. Very good indeed.”
“To comment here that the summer course was fully packed would be an understatement. All the tutors sure knows their onions and gave clear and concise explanations to the various topics that were treated - Undoubtedly, it has fully equipped me for the task ahead and I will surely recommend.”
