Study tips and websites for those with children in Y11

[noblegiraffe]

I've seen lots of threads with parents asking for good books and websites for revision for various subjects so thought it might be a good idea if we could collate them into a thread for reference.

How to study:
www.cultofpedagogy.com/learning-strategies/ - evidence-based strategies for effective revision such as 'retrieval practice' (practising remembering key facts - e.g. Self-testing), 'spaced practice' (coming back to the same topics at increasing intervals to increase chances of remembering them), 'interleaved practice' (mixing up questions to practise identifying the type of approach needed).

How to set up a revision timetable and make revision less daunting
missdcoxblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/29/how-to-prepare-for-exams/

Good websites for maths
mrbartonmaths.com/students/gcse/ a million resources for every topic
corbettmaths.com 5-a-day questions for regular revision, videos to explain each topic, and worksheets to practise the topics (with answers)
mathswebsite.com hegartymaths - you need to create a free login, it has videos with explanations of topics, then questions then goes through the answers. It keeps track of what has been watched.

Study tips for maths
The key thing for maths is that to learn maths, you have to do maths. You can't revise maths effectively by reading a book.
Ideally you'd have a pen and paper and do a question, check the answer, if correct try a harder question. If incorrect do not leave it but go back and try to figure out where you went wrong, then try more questions on the same topic.
Don't just do past papers over and over, use past papers (or mocks, or checklists from school) to identify weak topics, then focus on those topics using a revision guide, videos and worksheets linked to above. Then go back to past papers and identify more topics.
If a pen and paper aren't available (e.g. Revising on the bus) then revision cards with a question on one side and the answer on the other are good (Pearson sell ones like these). Look at the question, think about how you would do it, then check the other side. Bus time can also be used to self-test formulae, methods or facts (Corbettmaths sell ones like these ).
Do not do questions that you do not have the answer for, there's no point. Always check the answers (past paper mark schemes are on the internet) for any questions that you do.

Make sure your child knows off by heart (because so many get these basics wrong):
Prime numbers up to 30, square numbers up to at least 12 but better 15 squared, cube numbers up to 5 cubed.
Formulae for the area of a triangle, parallelogram, trapezium (new for 9-1 GCSE).
Formulae for the circumference and area of a circle (SO many students, even at higher, even at A* muddle these up)
THEIR TIMES TABLES (honestly, knowledge of times tables is so important for foundation students it can really be the difference between a pass and a fail).

I'm sure I'll think of more but that's probably enough for now. Anyone got any good sites/tips for other subjects?

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

a paid one, but very good for some learners is the tassomai website for science. I've recommended it so often I'm beginning to sound like a company rep. dd did it very intensively, starting part way through her actual gcse exams and got full ums for most of her modules. It was very good for the 'I don't know how to revise this any more, I've done all the past papers' moment.

I fully agree with your maths statement. You can't learn maths just by writing out pretty colour coded formula and 'reading' through your work. It's harder this year as previous past papers have less relevance. maths genie have the topic questions too, some are rewritten in the 9-1 style and they have 9-1 specimen papers too.

[minesawine]

Macbeth

My DS quite this guide as a supplement to his Macbeth revision.
www.shmoop.com/macbeth/summary.html

[noblegiraffe]

That's maths, science and Macbeth covered...anyone else?

[ShanghaiDiva]

For learning mfl vocabulary memrise.com is good as it manages the revision for you and all the words you struggle with appear on your daily list to practise until you have mastered them. The site is free and you can also make your own vocabulary lists. There are lots of lists for gcse, a level, ib etc.
Also for mfl I recommend looking at past papers from other exam boards too. This is useful for extra reading and listening comprehension practice. DS did this as he took Cambridge A level German and there were not a huge amount of past papers available as it is only November sitting for international candidates so it was useful for extra vocab to have past papers from other boards.

[evenstrangerthings]

I agree that Tassomai is good. My son has been on the Physics for a few months and I'll add in the other 2 sciences later this month.

There's also a new website savemyexams.co.uk that has maths and sciences GCSE and IGCSE exam paper questions/ mark schemes arranged by topic 🎉Perfect for when your teen asks for a 62 min exam paper on the Properties of Waves 😄 Some topics available for free then £10 a year or £20 for 2 years to access all the topics.

[Scarydinosaurs]

Mr Bruff YouTube channel for English (lit and Lang)

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Can we add in a level topics too!?

[BertrandRussell]

Does anyone know a good site for Spanish revision, please? I've noted the vocabulary ones- but ds finds learning vocabulary easy. It's everything else he can't be bothered with finds difficult.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Bertrand Duolingo whislt not gcse specific is pretty good at helping remember tenses and sentence structure - the app has bots that you can have conversations with.

[Decorhate]

Does anyone have any tips on how to improve in an MFL speaking & listening exam? Ds got a dire mark in his mock to the extent they are considering only entering him for the foundation paper if he doesn't improve...

[Violetcharlotte]

Place marking to come back to this later. Thank you for such a helpful thread, this advice is just what I'm looking for, for DS

[ShanghaiDiva]

Decorhate - listening is pretty easy to practise, just download as many past exams as possible (regardless of exam board) - paper, mp3 etc and work though them, you soon get used to listening for key information and making notes as the recording is played.

[Decorhate]

Thanks. I'll see what I can find online.

[user1484902196]

These posters which show the formulae that students do and do not need to know are really useful to help prepare for the new harder GCSE 9-1 maths exams, and they are FREE!

Suitable for AQA and Edexcel (separate posters available for Foundation and Higher). Up to 3 free copies of each available per order.

Please share this link with friends of children who you suspect might also like some giant, free posters to help with their GCSE exams!

//www.tutor2u.net/maths/blog/free-giant-classroom-posters-to-help-with-gcse-9-1-this-summer

[minesawine]

Hi - does anyone know where I can access Maths higher GCSE practice papers or revision quizzes. Need to be Edexcel based. My DS has worked through the examples given by his school. Thanks

[ActuallyThatsSUPREMECommander]

Has anyone got tips to improve accuracy on detail in MFL. DC here with essentially good vocab and grammar but dreadful memory for accents and genders. Was always terrible at that myself - everything I achieved in MFL was done by extrapolation from particularly solid English Language skills, which is no use at all when it comes to imposing a gender binary on a pineapple .

[Janek]

Which language SUPREME? When you learn the word the gender and the accents need to be part of the learning process. A ü is a different letter from a u, it makes a different sound when you say the word, so it part of the spelling of the word. Your DC needs to change the way they think of a letter with an accent I think.

[cress1da]

With MFL, the best way to improve listening skills is extensive listening ie lots of listening in the background. Get them to watch movies in the language (with English subtitles is fine, or original language better, so they get used to the sound of the language and where one word ends and another begins). Listen to pop music from the country, listen to local radion, anything so long as there is lots and lots of it. After a few weeks of this before my O Level, I started dreaming in the language!

For remembering details, not sure what will work better than the old look, cover, say check routine, ie testing themselves, or they can get a helpful parent to read out English translations of words they want to memorise, and then write down the foreign language equivalent and check the gender and spelling of the word as well as the word itself are correct.

Also, try writing longer written texts and check them against google translate if no better users of the language at home. Whilst this won't pick up all errors or provide a perfect translation, it should flag up some errors, which they can then look up. Using google translate to translate the English translation back into the foreign language should provide another check of the text originally written.

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

I just want to give noblegiraffe and everyone else who has posted such great advice on this thread a huge big old hug and thank you.

[ActuallyThatsSUPREMECommander]

Yes, I missed the last couple of posts but thanks for the handy MFL tips (it's German so it should be pretty straightforward to learn how to hear the difference between vowels with and without umlauts).

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

There are some more 9-1 maths resources here you have to pay for the solutions though.

[notangelinajolie]

Thankyou place marking 😊

[MistressofIndecision]

Thank you all, for the help and information DS doing revision through the Easter holidays and this is so helpful

[timeforsomethingnew]

Any recommendations on how to revise for English lit - Shakespeare and novel?