What should parents be doing this Easter to help their children prepare for exams? Chris Husbands, dean of the Faculty of Culture and Pedagogy at the Institute of Education, University of London, says: “The golden rule is to have a plan and stick to it. Make sure you have a routine and build in breaks. So aim to work in intensive bursts of 45 minutes and then take a half-hour break,” he says. “What is really important is that you do something actively with your knowledge. You need to boil it down to bullet points on index cards, because in an exam room you must have all that knowledge in concentrated form.”

With the aid of internet revision sites, such as BBC GCSE Bitesize, Professor Husbands advises teenagers to summarise their notes repeatedly, so that they are constantly engaged in processing the information. An over-anxious parent, he says, is likely to transmit their fear and put their child off learning. Revision, however, can be harder for boys and their parents. While girls are more likely to plough through it methodically, teenage boys may gamble on doing all of their work at the end of the holidays. Generally, girls can also concentrate for longer.

The results are clear: last summer, 53 per cent of girls achieved five A* to C grades, compared with 44 per cent of boys. More girls than boys achieved A grades in A level maths, further maths, physics, chemistry and economics. Surprisingly, boys did better at A level in modern languages — traditionally a subject in which females excel.

One way in which you can engage the interest of your teenage son is to download set texts on to his iPod. But even then, you cannot expect him to work for longer than 20 minutes at a time, says Anne Moir, a neuropsychologist and author of Brain Sex. If you argue with your children about how much work they are doing, she says, they may well rebel. “In both boys and girls the limbic, emotional generating area of the brain is not yet connected to the planning and advice area of the brain,” she says. “These connections develop at around 16-17 in girls and 20-22 in boys.” That means that the teenager may have difficulty in understanding and controlling their emotions. Consequently, many parents are choosing to offload the problem on to revision centres instead. Justin Craig (justincraig.ac.uk) operates 16 such centres in England and the number is expected to grow to 23 next year.

So far, the organisation has given revision tuition to about 4,000 pupils this year. Costs start at £315 for a three-day course . It has also recently begun to run courses advising parents on revision techniques.

Jeff Beatty, the course director, stresses that pupils should not have access to mobile telephones, televisions or computers while studying.

Professor Husbands says parents should remember that while we are critical of this generation, there is a fair amount of evidence to suggest that, in general, most do take their futures very seriously. “They’ve been examined since they were seven years old,” he says. “ When I began my teaching career 20 years ago, the first exam anyone took was at 16, so they know what’s expected.”

Times recommends

• Students abandon the drink for gyms and juice
• Ofsted: third of Baby P-style reviews inadequate
• Top boys' school picks first woman head