In this blog, I will talk about the exams I have to take in my second year at Club Doncaster Sports College.

What Are The Exams?

The 2 exams are part of the level 3 sports course, Sports Development and Sports Business.

The sports development exam is about how sport can develop a local community.

A large part of this is about the 3 aims sport development has, which increases participation, increases inclusivity and diversity, and increases sports industry opportunities.

The sports business exam is about how a particular business works, and reviewing what they do, what they could do better by recommending and many more.

This exam can be complicated, but my experience working at 6teen30 digital ever since leaving school gave me experience in a digital marketing agency.

Why Are These Exams Important?

These exams are essential as they are part of my last year at Club Doncaster Sports College, contributing to my end of year grade.

My end of year grade is pretty important as I have my apprenticeship laid out already at Sheffield Hallam University.

The only thing missing is finishing my level 3 qualification and my employer, which is a working progress.

Exam Preparation

Preparing for my exams was pretty easy because I can take 2 pages of both sides of A4 notes into my exams both of my exams.

Structuring my notes was pretty easy for me as I create templates in my job daily.

So I used a simple standard template for my notes by separating each set of notes into sections.

Then each section will include the information needed for my exams.

My exam notes will consist of the structure for each question and content for the exams.

For the sports development exam, I will have statistics for my scenario. Which will be given to me a week before my exam from my case study, which I will have to research.

For the sports business exam, I will research 3 different types of businesses after being given another case study for this exam a week before my exam.

The week before my exams, my week will be filled with revising and researching content needed for my notes to take into the exams.

The key to succeeding in exams is to be prepared whether you can take notes into your exam or not. Preparation is key.

National Lockdown January 2021

Just under 2 weeks before my exams, the UK got put into its 3rd lockdown. Which was pretty bad timing as my exams situation was relatively unknown with what would happen.

• Would they go ahead?
• Would they get cancelled?
• Would they get postponed?

While waiting for a statement from our governing board. I still took the time to prepare for my exam to put myself in the best possible situation possible, whether the exams went ahead or not.

Finally, we got an answer from the governing board, and they stated that it would be down to each individual college on if they would want to run the exams or not.

After a couple of days of college debating, if they could run the exams safely or not with the current circumstances, they have to think about students and staff’s health and safety. The college decided not to carry out the exam on the set date, and they have been postponed.

Our college decided, in the end, to postpone them. In contrast, other colleges and sixth forms have cancelled their exams altogether. They have agreed on the grades or exam year students to go to teacher assessed grades.

This still meant that I had to complete my notes to a high standard as the exam still might go-ahead. Even if they cannot rearrange for the exams to go ahead. They will use my exam notes and internally assessed grades to predict grades for these external based units.