Y11 revision tactics needed, please! Sorry, a bit rambly!

Student exam mentor was offering his tutoring services. Many times.

I wanna know what StudyExamMentor said!

I am Tansie in an alter ego, and thanks everyone who has contributed to this, I really appreciate you all taking the time to do so. I am reading my way carefully through each post and will discuss each with DS (who is currently revising for mocks in December!).

The revision experts seem to advocate mindmaps or flash cards. Luckily most of his subject teachers have given him a list of topics to revise, to use as Headers, if you like. Structuring is key!

Also, today, DS 'joined' BLUB Club . Twenty Y11 boys were told to assemble in a given classroom at lunchtime where they were inducted into this club, drink and cakes provided. It's Bright, Lazy, Underachieving Boys which I think is great; they were all told they are potentially A grade material (true, albeit not across the board in all subjects), and were asked to write down what level they personally thought they were achieving at and what sort of learner they thought they were. DS says it was all very grown up and 'take responsibility' style, not just 'a telling off'. It meets weekly and I have high hopes that this, along with DS's mentoring, might help DS 'turn a corner'.

Also, on Friday, we got a commendation postcard home for Science, for 'good effort' which is the first DS has received in years, (DS2, 13, gets them monthly!). Thin sliver of light on an otherwise grey horizon??

Coconutty I refer my A level students to mymaths.co.uk for help with A level topics and I also use examsolutions videos on YouTube. Khan Academy have some good stuff too.

My son sounds very similar to your's and he ended up doing very well in GCSEs this year, esp in triple sciences. This is what we did - printed off syllabus for each subject so we could see what could potentially come up in exam. Bought revision guide for each subject. He used postcards to write down bullet points for each topic - 1 card per topic. 3 months or so before exams bought coloured post-it note page markers (from The Works), and a annual wall planner. Decided realistically how many hours revision could be done in a day, obviously more at weekends or in holidays. Then looking at all subjects, decided which of his subjects were going to need more revision than others, either because they were important to do well in eg maths or because they were weaker for him. Then carved up the week's revision time accordingly. So eg if 40 hours available per week and 10 subjects, would expect 4hrs per subject, but he decided eg that RE would only require 1 hour but Maths would need 6hrs and biology 5. Then using 1 page marker sticker to represent 1 hour's revision, we gave each subject a different colour, we wrote the subjects on the stickers, and then stuck them on the wall chart. So there might be 4 stickers per day for various subjects, each one representing 1 hour's worth of revision. He preferred to mix the subjects each day but obviously you can choose how you allocate them, perhaps using all the stickers for 1 subject in a day. But what is reassuring is because you have made a conscious decision to allocate fixed hours per subject for the week, there can be no danger that you will overlook a particular subject. As each hour was completed, my son removed the sticker from the chart, which was very satisfying as he felt he was making progress. He found ploughing through past papers esp for maths and the sciences was helpful as you got a feel for not only what might come up, but for the wording of the questions. Apologies if this seems a very simplistic and obvious method, but my son has a limited attention span and is not what I ?ould call a reader, but this method really did work for him, because he was almost overwhelmed at knowing where and how to start his revision. Hope this gives you some ideas.

Tansie gleaning from my DCs, taking good notes in class and going over them soon after to organise further is a first step to learning and worth pushing for the rest of this year. The key is really trying to understand the concepts of what is being taught.
If your DS is more of an auditory learner so that videos are better than reading/ writing, I would suggest that after each video or appropriate section he paraphrases the material out loud as though he was teaching it and then also out loud he says the key points (those that he would be writing down). He can then record himself speaking the key point and use that for his revision with his headphones.

dd2 does mindmaps, but on fairly specific topics. I just looked at a photo of her bedroom wall from earlier this year where she had loads of revision stuff stuck up. There were quite a few mindmaps about "Of Mice and Men" - one on symbolism, one on Curley, one on Lennie, etc. She likes to have different branches in different colours.

I think if you just had Weathering in the middle and four different processes stuck around it that would be a very simple mindmap. I thought the point of them was to break topics down into smaller bits? So weathering in the middle, then Chemical as a first node, with facts about chemical weathering attached to that, like your son has done, is exactly what I would do for a mindmap on weathering.

I wouldn't make a mindmap, I don't have that sort of visual memory, but I would write it out in bullet points like titchy.

Answering questions is very useful - the process of retrieving memories is a really good way of strengthening those memories.

Does you son have textbooks? My dd didn't for most subjects, so I bought a lot, plus revision books. Basically revision for most people is make notes, answer questions. Just reading will get you so far, but won't be so effective. Your notes shouldn't just be a short version of the textbook - if there's something you find difficult, your notes should explain it to you in a way that you understand.

Sounds familiar

Spurred by this thread I pinned DS down this morning to tell me how he revises.

He says he basically tests himself. He reads 'stuff' then waits 'a bit' then tried to write down what he remembers.

I've heard that about the CGP books too but dd used them for the sciences and barely dropped any UMS. I helped her mark past papers and when we compared the mark schemes with the CGP book, it was spot on - exactly what you needed to say to get the marks (I am not saying this is a great way to learn - but it was a great way for dd to revise). Both my dc have found using textbooks and their own files to make revision notes too time-consuming - there is vast wads of stuff that isn't in a helpful format (pages of experimental write ups for experiments where all the plants died - the CGP book will have half a page with a clearly labelled diagram and the "right" results).

No-one here has ever used mind maps either - unless writing notes in a random order on a page counts? .

OP, I think it is hard to know how best to revise. The dc school makes all sorts of suggestions about mind maps ad quizzes but sometimes it is too much I think and means it is hard to cover everything. dd is disorganised and that was another reason she liked the CGP books - she could start at p1 and keep going and know she had covered the syllabus. The science videos sound similarly systematic - have you done some of them with him to show him how to use them to revise (similar to shiny with her maths set). My dd was astonished when I showed her how to go through a syllabus, say, ticking things off when she knew them (she has now gone to university so she did get the hang of all this in the end!).

I am a maths teacher and getting students to do effective revision is tricky.

For maths I believe that past papers are the best way forward. The best way to learn maths is to do maths! Also lots of students are fine with the skills but struggle to unravel what the question is asking because maths exams are also English exams these days At our school we also you mymaths and maths watch as interactive resources, so if pupils are stuck on a topic they know to go watch the video and answer the questions.

For my tip set year 11 we are creating revision cards at the end of each topic. I modelled the first one and then students have been making their own, high quality cards.

DD's chemistry teacher was a firm believer in past papers!
Initially doing them using notes and revision guides, and then checking marking scheme. Then getting to the stage where they were doing them properly without notes.

Neither of mine have ever used a mind map!

Past papers worked here alongside the revision guides. And then go through the mark scheme.

Do mind maps work for anyone? I was shown them when I was doing O levels (yes, that long ago) & I never made them, DCs have also been shown them at school as revision techniques & don't use them. Sorry to derail thread intentionally. Dd used the CGP revision guides last summer & did v v well.

I was a bullet point person too - DD's mind maps would have been useless for me. Whatever works for him.

But he does need to start watching the videos before he reads the question. What he's doing now would work for open book exams, but it's useless for GCSE.

I'd say cgp revision guides are useful as a basis but certainly nowhere near detailed enough to achieve a and a* grades