TRANSCRIPT:

You're listening to the Parents of Hardworking Teens podcast, episode 149, where we're going to talk about your teen creating the results they want—how we can make that happen and how this relates to another one of my favorite things.

Hey VIPs, I hope you and your teens are doing great. It is Sunday morning here; it is pouring with rain right now, and I am coming to you after a wild Saturday night of TV and wine!

I’m going to start out this podcast with a quote from my Saturday night viewing: "I'm calm, I'm in the zone, I know how to do this."

Any guesses on who spoke those words? Those are not the words of a top surgeon about to save a life in a medical drama. It is not from a gold-medal-winning Olympian. It is not Benedict Cumberbatch decoding in The Imitation Game (one of my favorite movies). It is the words of the 2025 Great British Bake Off winner.

Yes, me and my husband spent our Saturday evening partying hard to the Bake Off on binge. This was Jasmine, who was launching into getting all her utensils, her recipe, and all the ingredients out on her workbench for the "Showstopper" round—the final round of the Grand Finale. Those were her words to herself.

And they struck a bit of a chord with me because it occurred to me that those are the words that I would love students to be able to say to themselves—to genuinely be able to say out loud or in their heads, not just trying to kid themselves like some kind of mantra, but because they are just commentating on the reality inside of them.

You could tell she believed it. It wasn't some big grandiose gesture; she knew the method that was needed, she had a recipe, she had the skills, and she'd practiced. That's what I want your teen to know and to have and to be.

We want to feel calm and in control rather than stressed. We want to be "in the zone"—that wonderful feeling where we're engrossed with something or in the flow. And we want to know how to do whatever it is we're trying to do. We want to be competent. We want to be able to determine the best strategy to tackle something or, dare I say it, go further and have mastery over those skills, the strategies, the techniques, so that we can produce not just an adequate or competent outcome but the best possible outcome and, I talk about this a lot, do it in the most efficient way.

And it's just occurred to me, it didn't occur to me last night, but it's just occurred to me now as I say that, that half of the challenge of those challenges is the time limit. I'm sure all the participants could do an amazing job if they had all the time they wanted. Which is why I think most students tell me they prefer assignments over exams because there's that space, the head space and the time space to think, to make adjustments, to change your mind, to improve, to tweak, maybe even start again if needed. There was definitely someone who had to chuck something away for some reason and start baking that part again. And there isn't that luxury in an exam.

On the flip side, although it's nice to have that luxury when it comes to take-home tasks and assignments and essays, I also don't want students to be restarting more than necessary, to having to tweak and edit and change and, you know, add in more detail and then be trying to edit things back out because they've gone over the word count. We don't want all of that extra effort and time consumed if it's not necessary.

And when we consider that the Bake Off contestants get to practice their Showstopper at home before the recording, and students can practice with past papers but they can't practice their actual exam answers, their responses to questions when those questions are unknown and they don't know what's going to come up on the exam, so it's even more important that they have the right skills and techniques and they've got the tools and they know how to use them effectively and accurately and efficiently and with a high degree of skill.

And none of those things that I've listed are standalone skills or elements or concepts or understandings. They are all interlinked. And I did a podcast episode on this idea that everything is interlinked and everything builds on each other and is interwoven. It's on an episode called "The Skill Web." I will drop the link in the show notes for you so you can go check that out.

But this is why if one concept, one essay skill, one element of the six elements of exam technique is missing, then it can affect a lot of other things, or it can have a significant impact. Like you could make the most beautiful-looking masterpiece of a cake (I couldn't, but people can), but if you don't know how to select and combine flavors, it's going to be all show and no taste.

Maybe your teen has lots of good knowledge about the latest English novel that they're studying, but they aren't able to properly answer the question or address the highest-level criteria of the essay they then have to write on it. Or let's say you have all the recipe ingredients for the cake, but you don't really know how to combine them or what to add or mix first or what method to be using. Like when I see students with lots of subject knowledge but they don't really know how to apply it to the specific wording of exam questions.

And there are multiple elements, ingredients, and ways to mix them to create different results, and certain ways to do it that are going to create much better outcomes and do it in a much more effective and much more efficient way. And I want your teen to have the right tools and be trained in the best strategies and techniques and have the understanding of how everything works. Why are we mixing those two ingredients together first? How does this stuff work when we put it in the oven at a certain temperature? So they can make the best decisions and create their best possible responses when it comes to exam questions or open tasks or those more creative assignments or writing essays, whether they're seen or unseen, and can craft extended responses like analytical and comparative writing.

They can make their revision really effective and efficient and make their everyday study way more strategic, way more intentional, way more outcome-oriented so they get their best possible results without adding unnecessary stress or struggle or unnecessary time is wasted along the way.

And I think the reason that that quote kind of stood out to me in this whole analogy of the baking and the cake making is because I have been working on something new for your teen. And it is called The Results Lab.

It is going to be a three-to-nine-month training, coaching, and mentoring program where hardworking students will build the strategies, refine the skills, and develop the systems that consistently produce top academic results and have them do it with confidence and efficiency and a little bit of fun and a great life balance along with it.

Because I know that many students are busy, and I know that you want your teen to still have a life beyond their homework and assessment, and we want to reduce the time that they're spending on their study but doing it without them feeling like they need to be doing more or meaning that they're cutting corners or actually sacrificing the quality of their work or the marks that they're getting.

And I'm calling this The Results Lab because I'm going to be tailoring three key systems to students individually and personally. So those will be exam technique, essays and extended response, and strategic study systems—the study smarter, not harder aspect. And we're going to build these in the order that makes most sense for each student individually, where they're at, what they need most or first, and according to what will move the needle most for them. So some students may need more than others, hence the three-to-nine-month window. We might just need to install a few things, or you might want support and coaching for your teen right up to their final exam to really maximize and optimize those skills and how they action them and the results and outcomes that they produce. Or it might be somewhere in between.

But here's the other thing about the name Results Lab: Do not worry, there will not be any experimentation happening in this lab. I've essentially done all of that already on tens of thousands of external exam papers and the hundreds of hours of exam board training and moderation and panel work that I have done over the past 15 years. So there will simply be a carefully calculated and curated combination of skills and systems and the understanding of these delivered to your teen along with support and guidance as they implement them.

Now, what I really don't want is for your teen to be doing their own random experimentation for themselves—i.e., guessing their way, which I know is what is happening for a lot of students at the moment. They're kind of guessing their way through their high school years. I certainly don't want that happening in their senior assessments or final exams. Because honestly, if I'm being a little bit blunt, that is what I see happening for a lot of students. It doesn't always feel like it, but if I ask them some pointed questions about exactly what are they doing, why are they doing it, and how they're doing it, it's kind of what is happening. They're taking their best guess.

And there's this underlying uncertainty for so many students about exactly what a question is asking, what the marker is going to actually want or be looking for in their response. And even when they do know those two things (which is not that often, again, if I'm being honest and blunt), but even if they do know those things, there's also that uncertainty over how to actually state or write or put across those things at the top levels that they're aiming for. They sometimes know what those things are and they understand what is happening, but then what they're not certain on is how to actually do it.

And I do not want your teen's study to be one long drawn-out experiment that is based on a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and some of it works out great and some of it is maybe a minor explosion. And actually, that could be kind of a good thing or a bad thing, couldn't it, when you think about it? Like amazing or total disaster, who knows? Or sometimes it's just this drag or drain on their time with like this little tiny fizzle at the end, very little reward at the end.

And I want them to have steps and systems and strategies and someone to ask, "Hey, am I doing this right?" or "What am I supposed to do here?" or someone to even jump in and go, "Oh my goodness, do not do that, it is going to cause a disaster," or "Yes, you could do it that way, but here's what I would do instead that's going to give a much better result." And I want them to do that while they still have time and without them having to put together some of their own random concoction. I want to help them create the best possible outcomes and keep that life balance and keep growing their confidence as we go.

So this is going to be a small group of students. I'm taking a maximum of eight students for this with each student getting lots of personal attention from me. So if you'd like to find out more, you can email support@rocksolidstudy.com with any questions or just to ask for more information and we'll be sure to get back to you. The deadline to join is Monday, the 16th of March 2026, and then we're going to be diving in and start creating—not concocting—creating and crafting those results.

So here is to less guesswork and experimentation, much more certainty, more confidence, more marks, more cake (that maybe can't hurt along the way, that can definitely help), and definitely a lot more enjoyment and calmness along the way.

I'm going to go grab a cuppa and whatever the closest thing I have to cake in my house right now. It's actually—I can tell you what it's going to be—it's going to be a banana bread and walnut muffin. Yes, I did make them myself, but that is the extent of my baking ability. It has to all be able to go into one bowl, get mixed, get put in the oven and be pretty simple baking. Thankfully, my examiner and study coach and teaching abilities run much higher and further than my cooking skills. But anyway, have a brilliant rest of your week and I will see you back here next time for another episode. Take care. Bye!