Have you ever taken an exam and let yourself down? You had worked hard for the exam – maybe not well, maybe not properly, but you had put the work in. And you failed, or maybe got a grade you knew you didn’t deserve. It seems so unfair, doesn’t it – assessing a whole year (or term or whatever) of work on one or two days performance. Well yeah, in some ways it is. But, and here’s the big but, it’s the system for many people. And it’s probably going to continue to be the system for a long time. So you need to learn how to work with the system, and win!

That’s where the idea of exam coaching came from – I have taught young doctors at undergraduate and post-graduate level for many years. But before that I was on the receiving end for sooooo long – batchelor’s degree, medical degree, post-graduate diplomas. I worked out at one stage that I must have sat at least one hundred ‘official’ exams in my career – MCQ, essays, practical, oral - practically every form of intellectual torture known to man! So, maybe, just maybe, I know a bit about what it takes to pass.

A couple of years ago, I took a change in career, and trained as a hypnotherapist. Loved the training, and loved the job. And guess what? I started seeing people as a hypnotherapist for exam nerves, improving performance etc. And so, I decided to combine the two – my years of experience and knowledge of educational practice and psychology; and the sheer usefulness of hypnosis, NLP and similar techniques.

So what is exam coaching, then? Well it’s a process where I partner up with people preparing for exams, to guide and assist them to maximise their chances of passing. In other words, help them to do themselves justice on the day. Seems like a worthwhile occupation to me, don’t you agree?