How are your year 10/11 dc revising?

Hiya, my daughter is in year 11 and is revising a bit. She does 1 topic every day. She gets the specification, endorsed textbooks and cgp guides and writes concise notes. She makes flashcards on stuff such as equations and formulas. She doesn't do loads, but makes sure she does a bit every night.

NB. My DD could not do more than 5hrs in one day (dyspraxia). If she had more stamina she might have done more, but she did all she could.

It is a massive slog from Easter to the last exam (especially after the May half term). It is essential not to burn them out too soon. They have to pace themselves.

posted too soon

As well as the 11 days over the xmas holidays, she then had 2hrs after school for the first week, then the weekend, then after school and some non-exam time the following week, then the weekend before the final 2 days of exams.

So probably the same amount of time again until the last mock done.

I've just checked back her timetable for mocks revision.

For DD they didn't do everything in the mocks

• so if you were doing double science you only had C1 & P2 (and no biology at all)
• only English Lang, no Lit
• she was doing drama with no written exam for that
• she was doing 2 MFL which have less revision as they are more cumulative

As well as the 11 days over the xmas holidays, she then had 2hrs after school for the first week, then the weekend,

That sounds really great Teen, but DS has 2 weeks holiday over Christmas - 16 days. If he has 5 days for socialising, that's 11 days left - one for each GCSE. Surely one 5 hour day can't be enough time to revise a whole subject?
First child to do this, though, so very happy to be told I'm wrong...

What we did over the Christmas holidays, was make sure all family socialising was done in a solid block of 5 days over Christmas. Those days were completely revision free, but otherwise she did her scheduled amount (which was ~3 hrs morning and ~2hrs late afternoon). It isn't fair to keep interrupting them to visit Great Aunt Mary or whatever.

Seconded, Ontopofthesunset . My DC (seven of whom have recently or fairly recently left school) certainly didn't revise at this time of year, nor is my eighth DC (Y11) revising. It seems far, far too early. None of mine bombed out as a consequence - I really wouldn't worry OP. Revising for mocks and then from Easter for the real thing is the usual pattern and if the mocks go badly then that can actually be quite useful, assuming the problem is lack of revision and nothing more.

I did Teen and then got to the bit about revision cards before Christmas and panicked

Did no one read my post Sun 10-Sep-17 15:12:07?
My DD did same revision as Ontops

ontop - such a relief to read your post. I was beginning to think I was the minority with not worrying at all about actual revision (as opposed to homework) until Christmas time. Seems like madness otherwise. 4-5 hours on a Sunday??? already?

Completely agree with last comments. My DD (now year 13) was so bored with revision by the time she got to the actual GCSEs I'm sure it affected the intensity of revision during the actual exams.

Ontop thank goodness! DS struggles to get his homework done - let alone do any revision!! Over the summer we re-organised his books/files and made sure all his sheets etc were stuck in.....
Probably need to do more of the same over half term. Christmas is earmarked for revision by me.

What ontopofthesunset says!

Just keep up with homework and in class tests at this point and then revise for mocks and real exams as they happen.

I just wonder, as the parent of a child who's just finished year 12, whether it isn't a bit early to be 'revising'. My son revised for his mocks (first week back after Christmas) in the two weeks over the Christmas holidays and then for his GCSEs from Easter onwards. Of course there was revision in school on top of that, but revising now for exams that are nearly a year away is a sure way to arrive at burnout.

Shouldn't he just do his homework well, revise for any tests in school, and start revising a few weeks before his mocks? If they are before Christmas, that will be after half term. Then from February half-term (not that that happened here) he could start revising properly.

Physics, Maths, Chemistry. .. cannot be revised thoroughly by reading or mind mapping. These subjects are all about application so he needs to do questions to understand these subjects.

Also review the work he's done in school weekly. Chances are he hasn't fully grasped the concepts first time round. If he reviews what he's done jn class it should develop a deeper understanding of what he's doing.

ha! that will learn me.

I think fear of failure is unhealthy - we learn from failure.

Dcs both year 10 - both do homework to the best of their ability, one reads loads of English novels to up his game. We have a Maths and a French tutor but they are both motivated to achieve and I do very little other than smooth the pathway. I believe the more you interfere and take control as a parent, the less they take responsibility and the more they fight back, do nothing and blame you for their failure.

(yr11 overachiever) DD suggests motivate them with "crippling fear of failure"
(DH suggested cut out job ads for McDonalds... :) ).

DD might have a point. I never tried or got organised in school until I nearly failed a class. In my system you could fail just for not doing the homework. Fear of public humiliation made me change my ways.

It is really rewarding to complete a task for revision. So instead of struggling to motivate 'create mindmaps for ionic bonding' perhaps a concrete task would help? Does he have access to textbooks? I sometimes recommend completing summary or end of chapter questions (many revision guides have these too) for my pupils. It's something concrete and when he gets stuck he can then mindmap, quiz himself on vocab etc... and then go back and hopefully complete the questions.

CGP workbooks are also useful for this purpose. He can then make a 'to do list' with each end of chapter/ summary question section and tick them off to see for himself that he's making progress.

Isaac Physics has some new GCSE questions too (they've been more focused on A Level in the past). They've made a book with many calculation-type questions available to purchase for £1 plus shipping.

DS put all the Science topics that he had covered in Year 10 onto cards/mind maps over the summer holidays. He is also using Tassomai 3 or 4 times a week. But he finds Science very tricky.

He's using DuoLingo for French.

His current plan is that he will work for 2 hours each evening. Homework first, then use the rest of the time for putting Year 10 History and Geography notes onto cards.

He plays rugby on Saturday, so realistically won't work at all that day.
Aiming for 4-5 hours on Sunday.

After the grand total of one week, he seems to be sticking to the plan, but who knows if it will continue. Mocks first week back after Christmas.