Why it's boom time for crammers

Revision courses were once a last resort for otherwise lost causes. Now, in our exam culture, they're for high-achievers, writes Diana Hinds

Ten years ago, students who enrolled for revision courses in the months leading up to their A-levels or GCSEs tended to be those who were worried about failing. But in today's examination-laden culture – in which students now take AS-levels in addition to GCSEs and the new A2s, and, largely as a result of league tables, the world is increasingly preoccupied with exam results – the demand for revision courses is growing fast. Students now take revision courses to pass exams and to get As rather than Bs, and Cs rather than Es.

"Revision courses are much more of a mainstream thing," says James Burnett, the principal of Mander Portman Woodward, a London tutorial college whose A-level Easter revision courses attract 500-600 students, including 100 just for AS revision.

"There was a tendency five years ago for schools to be wary of sending their students on revision courses, for fear it might contradict the way they were being taught at school," says Mr Burnett. "But now that schools are being judged on their results, many are very much in favour of revision courses run by tutorial colleges, recommending them to parents, even ringing us themselves about particular students needing help."

Revision courses do not come cheap, needless to say – they cost around £300-£500 a week. But many now attract a sizeable minority – up to 40 per cent – of students from state schools, whose parents may not be able to shell out for private schooling, but feel that a pre-exam boost is a worthwhile investment.

Children and parents are becoming "sensitised to exams like never before, and that's good and bad", says Kevin Byrne, director of Abbey Colleges, which has centres in London, Cambridge, Birmingham and Manchester. "I don't think we've ever been so aware of the importance of getting the best qualifications you can."

But at the same time, he argues, students are getting better at taking responsibility for their learning, knowing where they need help and asking for it. "Revision courses can't make up for laziness," he stresses. "The students we can help are those who've worked hard, but haven't understood, say, 5 per cent of the syllabus. The students who come to us and say, I've got 10 objectives, these are the ones who will benefit. We can raise their confidence and teach them better time-management."

Gerald Hattee, principal of Collingham tutorial college in Kensington, thinks it's a good thing that we're becoming much more exam focused as a nation. "We need to become more like that," he says. "We need a work ethic. I don't think students are overworked, and it is useful for them to have these external exams".

In the intensifying examinations climate, tutorial colleges are finding they are able to put their traditional skills as crammers to good use, not just in revision courses, but in providing two-year GCSE and A-level courses. Many colleges report a decline in the number of students applying to retake A-levels, but an increase in the number wanting to take complete A-level courses with them. The advent of AS-levels is boosting numbers further, with some students transferring mid-sixth form to retake AS units alongside A2 courses.

Some colleges, such as Mander Portman Woodward and Davies Laing & Dick in London, and d'Overbroeck's in Oxford, are also running two-year GCSE courses – turning themselves, in effect, into upper schools. Students choose these colleges for a variety of reasons: because they want a change from a boarding or day school, and a fresh start; because they want something smaller and more personalised; because they like the "pre-university" atmosphere of a tutorial college, where students have more autonomy and a more adult relationship with their tutors.

In return, they – and their parents – can expect a style of teaching that ensures that students become adept at exam technique. "We are totally examination-focused, and we coach in a very precise way," says John Dalton, vice-principal of the David Game College in Notting Hill Gate, which last year gained four of the five top results in pure maths A-level in the country. "Parents who choose us want their children to have more individual and more exam-focused attention – because of their fear of failure.

"Students do part of a public exam every week, and in the last term, bits of mocks two or three times a week per subject," says Elizabeth Rickards, principal of Davies Laing & Dick. "There is more exam coaching than in most schools because it's in the culture."