Tell me what is wrong with this GCSE revision timetable....

@Lolasmiles gave you the best advice right at the beginning of this thread.
Students and indeed people in general, should always work hardest on their weaknesses. Too much time spent on ones they are good at is pointless, you cannot get more than 100 marks out of 100!
So giving equal weight to revision for all subjects is not a good idea.

I find it incredible that the school told you to do this but are not themselves providing any form of revision sessions at all. Giving students and parents responsibility is one thing, but abdicating from this is shit and the school stinks over this.

The school I taught in would never have allowed staff to do this and indeed I provided much and comprehensive revision material for all my students. Other staff ran sessions even in the Easter holidays, unpaid of course.

You and DC need to sit down and work something out together along the lines of @Lolasmiles extremely comprehensive and sensible post.

Give him responsibility but make sure he knows you are there to help and check what he plans makes sense. You are very caring and I wish you both all the best.

Comefrom Ds is in year 11 and also autistic (recently diagnosed). He has the ability to pass his gcses well but struggles with anxiety and stress. He's doing mocks this week and we have encouraged revision but have not pushed in any way. He has had a very difficult year and although exam results are important so is his mental health. He is my second child to go through gcses and it is very different with a child that has additional needs, I too worry about the future.

Or some parents know that the GCSE passes get onto the strongly desired BTEC.

That's us. Ds needs his GCSE's to get onto a Btec in a subject that he hyper-focuses on. At 15 he is already starting to build work experience and professional contacts in this area. His asd however means that he needs more support than the average child and will for some time to come. I do worry about how he will cope with life as an adult.

Ds is hopeless at organisation - he is getting better but just couldn’t focus.

He’s a smart lad and getting better as he gets older - I need to support him now so he can get through, why wouldn’t I? So he can say to me in a few years time ‘why didn’t you help me when I needed some help?’

I agree piccolo .
People have a tendency to judge these kind of things by their own parenting style and the children they have. There isn't one 'right' way.

Some children are motivated and organised - great leave them to it
Some children are motivated and disorganised - they need help structuring
Some children aren't motivated - do you leave them to fail so they learn the consequences, or take the view they can be cajoled through to get reasonable grades which they will then have in their back pocket for life?
Some children are reluctant because they are afraid of failing - do you just leave it to be self fulfilling, or nurture them through.

Also, not all children do A levels & degree. There is nothing to stop a parent saying I'll help through GCSEs but 6th form you are on your own. If they screw up y12 they can retake it. Or some parents know that the GCSE passes get onto the strongly desired BTEC.

...and some kids simply can't organise themselves without help.

Independence is learnt; it isn't automatic and some children need support much longer than others.

Frankly, on MN, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If your children don't do well, it's your fault for leaving them to it. If they do well with your support, you're criticised for helicopter parenting.
Of course, there are children who do brilliantly without any help from anyone, and that's great, but there are more that need gentle guidance and some that need micromanaging.

Just because they still need help at 15/16, it doesn't mean they are still going to when they're 18, 21 etc. Why is it any different from different rates of development at any other time of childhood?

I did 3 hours a week, in 30 minute session from February. I passed all 9 GCSEs and got over 5s in all.

I knew people who were doing 5+ hours a week and were mentally and physically drained from doing that much revision after school.

With respect sweetheart, anyone who is mentally drained from doing five hours of revision a week isn't going to cut it in the real world.

Some kids won't organise themselves because their parents always do it for them.

Some kids won’t organise themselves! then let them fail and resit if they have to. What are you going to do, hold their hand through their A-levels and degree too.?

And yes to seneca

My disorganised son did his own, much more likely to stick to it that way

I don’t think you can say that each subject needs the same amount of time. Dd spent 0 hours on revision for Spanish, less than 20 for maths and lots more hours (I think) on other content heavy subjects like history and biology.
To be honest, unless your child has severe organisational issues I’d try and stay out of their work as much as possible. They are 15-16 year olds and so whatever you say will make them want to do the opposite and they do also know themselves best

As a person who has just done my GCSEs this past year(I’m 16 and in college) I can assure you that doing that much revision is pointless.

I did 3 hours a week, in 30 minute session from February. I passed all 9 GCSEs and got over 5s in all.

I knew people who were doing 5+ hours a week and were mentally and physically drained from doing that much revision after school.

With revision it’s not what you do it’s how you do it, I’ve got some YouTube videos from a guy that helped me revise

There is only a couple but he has more incredible revision tips that you can look at with your child, also a very good website to use is ‘seneca’.

Any other questions just ask :)

I was a lazy sod. Wish my parents had told me to get my arse in gear.

I would have been furious if my parents had told me when, how and how long to revise for any of my exams. I would have found it patronising and offensive. Fortunately, my children are like me, so I don't have to worry about this! How can a parent possibly know how many hours revision their child needs to do for each subject? That's just ridiculous. They would have to be studying the subjects alongside their child and constantly testing them on their knowledge to have the faintest idea - no other way of knowing whether their aggravating suggestions are helpful or counterproductive.

Shmarv I find it interesting that you say revision is unnecessary, but then you failed the subject you didn't revise.

Actually I suspect you worked consistently through your courses (other than history), probably consolidating (aka revision) as you went along. And teachers also included tests and consolidation/revision which may or may not have been obvious to you. Which is the ideal way to do things. however, some of us on this thread have children that haven't worked consistently and won't pass their GCSEs unless they do some more focused work, preferably over a longer period of time. Which I think is what OP was aiming for, even if her method probably wasn't quite right.

ShmarvDogg
That's terrible advice and also your own presentation of your grades isn't accurate.

9 - not an A* (it's the top X% of an A)
8 - not an A (it's approximately the bottom of an A and the top of an A)
7 - is the lower end of the old A

That's because 3 grades have been created out of 2. Same for B/C and 4/5/6.

Equally you are talking nonsense on grades going up every year too. The new courses are norm referenced

It sounds very much like a ramble to the effect of "I did no work and did well so working hard is a waste of time" aka the same argument as "I smoked when pregnant and didn't do me harm...I had 3 pints and drove home and didn't do me harm..."

I saw teachers on here saying they often build in revision time in lessons at GCSE and their students seem completely unware of it with some claiming they'd done none or bare minimum
I think too often students (and parents) can seem to think that more is better so they may slack off in the 8-10 hours of core subjects a week, put 60% effort into homework but then expect staff to run holiday revision sessions or after school sessions etc.

I would say on average I do around 30-40 mins of revision a week of previous topics at GCSE starting from y10.
Homework tasks are often linked to previous topics (Eg. Half term 2 homeworks are based on half term 1 content).
I don't believe in running staff into the ground and I also don't believe there is any need to excessive intervention and additional lessons for most students if they are working hard in class, completing homework properly, and revising for their assessments.

Sadly, some parents/students seem to think the measure of success and good teaching is:

• lots of homework (regardless of how much effort goes into completing it)
• lots of red pen in exercise books (regardless of whether it had any impact)
• lots of additional intervention
• lots of revision sessions available (regardless of whether DC are doing any at home)
• lots of holiday revision sessions
• finishing the course early (even though that often means that content had been rushed in order to get to "revision" and the "revision" is usually "re-teaching material was was ineffectively covered first time round")

Interestingly, all things that are low impact and high workload on staff with limited effort required from students.

Yes, dd's teachers spent almost the whole of the term from Easter until exams started doing revision in class. They didn't have study leave.

Either you are very bright, or your school laid on loads of revision in school

I saw teachers on here saying they often build in revision time in lessons at GCSE and their students seem completely unware of it with some claiming they'd done none or bare minimum..

DC school is rushing through 2 year courses in 12 months, doing early exams and battling teacher shortages and in one subject they've found ks3 stuff the'd expect to build on hadn't been covered due to shortages and reorganisation. I'm sure teacher are still trying their best - but I expect there's less scope for that in many subjects than ideal.

If I was your child I would look at that and go and hide under the duvet....

DS isn't organising himself yet. Also not going to lunchtime revision sessions. I'm keeping out of it until I see mock results end of Jan. I've said if those are way off what he is capable of then sport will be cut back (he does loads) and I will impose a timetable - blocks of time not specifying what topics.

Shmarv Sorry, but I think you are giving really bad advice. 3-5 hours of revision per exam in total and only starting 3 weeks before exams is just plain ridiculous as general expectation.

Either you are very bright, or your school laid on loads of revision in school, or you are misleading us. If that really is all you did, think what you could have achieved if you had put more effort in.