Year 7 Revision help!!

[SouriHound]

Posting in AIBU for traffic, apologies.

Ds is in year 7 and has exams coming up in 2 weeks time. Despite my nagging, he hasn't revised very much at all for his exams. He's got pretty good grades on his in year tests but I am worried as these end of year exams can contain any material from year 7 he may not do so well without having revised thoroughly.

Please, could you share your top tips for quick and efficient revision, any and all tips will help so much!

He is a very enthusiastic learner in the classroom but at home, mills about, looks at status updates of friends on his phone and mopes but doesn't revise!!. How can I get him to revise?

Take away his phone, set the kitchen timer and get him to do 30mins reading notes then making a spider chart about a topic. When the bell goes, he can have ten mins in the garden/on his phone/whatever. Do a couple of subjects in the morning and a couple more in the afternoon.

It would probably be a good point for him to learn that if he doesn't revise, he doesn't do well. Let him fail.

Just leave him to it. It sounds like he's engaged enough to do ok. And if he doesn't then it's only year 7.

@2reefsin30knots

It would probably be a good point for him to learn that if he doesn't revise, he doesn't do well. Let him fail.

Learning from experience is important. I didn't do much more than skim notes in KS3. The GCSE years were much more purposeful and I matured through them. Even then I flunked my first piece of coursework by leaving it to the last minute and not completing it, but it was a powerful lesson and I learned to plan and pace future coursework. If my mum had "nagged" me about it, I would not have learned it for myself.

You can't force a child to revise. You can take away their phones and make them sit in front of a book for 30 minutes but unless they are actively engaged it's pointless and will not help. Yr 7 is early days, and as pp said if they don't do as well as they wanted then it's a learning experience. One strategy that did work with my teens was to talk through material. I would feign ignorance on a topic and get them to explain it to me, adk them dumb questions etc. They knew it was a tactical move but they quite liked feeling they knew more than i did. We did it during dog walks, car journeys etc so it felt less time consuming and boring.

You leave him to it.

Why are you getting so involved? Mine are all past Year 7 but never have I thought to meddle in their school work. We expecxted them to do it and we rewarded them if it was done consistently. Other than that we left well alone.

And as for 'set a timer' blah blah blah what a way to turn your kids into the type of people who can't learn independently.

Use the pomodoro technique for timing.

1. Decide on four varied topics to be revised and be very specific about what form the revision will take. It could be to create ten flashcards, an extended piece of creative writing, a set of short questions, a flow chart etc. Have all materials and questions ready before starting.

1. Use a timer like this one . This means that he will do four rounds of 25 minutes hard work, followed by 5 minutes of rest. After each break, he should switch to the next subject.

1. When the two hours is up, stop completely. Revision for longer periods isn't as efficient.

I just want him to take a bit of initiative and he finds this very difficult at home apparently as he rather relaxes .

Some of his friends are making flash cards but this takes time in itself and we won't be able to do this now. Everyone says just reading through their workbooks is not enough and he has just read through two lesson topics in one subject during the holidays .

Regardless of the outcome of these particular exams, I want him to learn how to revise and study at home. Thank you for sharing the above tips, timed revising sounds like a good approach on the one hand but I appreciate @carefullycourageous 's thoughts on kids not becoming proactive learners if parents meddle.

DS just doesn't seem to know how to make himself study (lack of motivation at home) but has always been keen at school even learning online, completing all the tasks, during lockdown. He does well with structure but refuses any suggested structure from me. I think that if his school was more instructive in teaching kids how to revise, he'd be more keen.

Regarding flashcards, how long would you spend on this and would you do this for all topics or prioritise?

If you want him to take the initiative, you have to step back. You are doing the opposite of letting him take the initiative.

Ultimately, he is either going to do well enough with his approach, in which case he was right and did not need to revise, or he is not, in which case you have some useful data to work with.

I really would say to him that 'I think you shoudl revise, but these are your exams and it is your education, my job is to provide what you need and your job is to choose what to do with it'. Then see how he gets on.

He is only in Year 7. Learning how to do things yourself is such a vital skill.

FWIW, the students who were overhelped by school on revision are a nightmare at university level as they just are unable to do it independently! So see this as a way of setting him up for the future and have a cup of tea.

You could go through the subjects seeing which would need most revision; English, Maths, languages probably need no revision if he has applied himself all year. That probably leaves science(s) and Hist/Geog which have content he needs to cover. Suggest he makes a timetable for revising these. Spider diagrams more useful at this stage than flashcards, which are time consuming.

@SouriHound flashcards don't take long to make, and the making of them is a revision task in itself. All you really need is a few bits of A4 paper, cut into 6/8 smaller pieces. They don't literally need to be cards if you don't have any to hand.

You can use them for anything where recall of knowledge is needed:

• question/ answer
• fill in the missing word
• true or false

@Pottedpalm

You could go through the subjects seeing which would need most revision; English, Maths, languages probably need no revision if he has applied himself all year. That probably leaves science(s) and Hist/Geog which have content he needs to cover. Suggest he makes a timetable for revising these. Spider diagrams more useful at this stage than flashcards, which are time consuming.

Why do you think flashcards take a long time to make? If there is a lot of information on them, they're not really serving their purpose. They should simply be a short question with an answer on the back.

The cycle of consolidation-practice-review is really useful, it not only teaches a clear structure but also focuses on getting students to develop long term memory and retrieval. There is lots you can read about retrieval practice. I would focus on 30-40 minute sessions, and help him by creating a revision timetable together, checking knowledge, providing cups of tea and biscuits!!

I really would say to him that 'I think you shoudl revise, but these are your exams and it is your education, my job is to provide what you need and your job is to choose what to do with it'. Then see how he gets on. I fear that this is what I am left to do. He only comes up with bad excuses such as that he hasn't had enough time in the holidays as his "younger brother asked him to play in the garden" or he'll say that he will do it "this afternoon" or "later", which never really happens.

@Pottedpalm I agree that History, Geography and science are the ones to focus on. A brief chat this morning resulted in him saying he needs more fun so he is out with his dad now.

I feel frustrated at his total lack of insight and that going over the content of two lessons in one subject in the whole of the Easter holidays is not very efficient. Annoyingly he says that he does want help from us and that he is not sure how to revise but when I suggest anything, he refuses and disengages.

I've said to Dh that I will back off now and let him and DS work it out. Ds is bright but clearly not a grafter. Let's see how that pans out academically. Maybe he'll pull it off or maybe not.

Blank page method is a good place to start. Write down everything you can remember about a topic, developing points as you go. It helps you spot where the gaps in your knowledge are so you can revise these, then go back to blank page and it should be more detailed on the second try.

@SouriHound I think this is a reasonable approach to take, especially in Y7. Perhaps worth mentioning this to his form tutor as well, especially if they have any kind of form time discussion after the assessments so that they can frame his outcomes in the prep he did.

From personal experience, I sailed through school as far as ALevel, doing quite well with no real revision. It was a shock to my system when I realised that I did have to actually put some work in to keep up.

Wow we never did this kind of revision for year 7. Quick look at notes and some practice questions. Honestly you dont want them to burn out by gcses but rather build up to it, adding a bit more to the process each year.

As an ex secondary teacher I wouldn't expect hours of revison each day at Easter. Truly.

Go onto this website and get a free account. It’s using computers so he’s more likely to be engaged. You just need to look at the KS3 sections of it and figure out if they have learnt it this year.
senecalearning.com/en-GB/
The other place it to go to BBC bitesize. Some revision is better than no revision.
Also what help have his teachers given him? I would expect some kind of guidance even if it’s just topic lists.

It might be overwhelming for him to revise for everything. As he’s in yr 7 and not done it before. I’d help him.

Set some revision time in the morning. Set up a timetable with him and list all the topics he needs to look over.
Help him to get started then leave him to it to go through his timetable and tick things off.

Have fun in the afternoons.

I disagree with those saying leave him to it.

Children don't just 'know' how to revise effectively, it is a skill they have to learn and practice. Much better to start learning this in y7 when results don't matter than to still be trying to find techniques that work in y11.

Maybe sit down and discuss / agree revision, even if only for a few subjects and not much time.

Despite my nagging, he hasn't revised very much at all for his exams.

That's probably because he doesn't know what to do. He didn't sit his SATs and presumably has zero experience of properly revising over a longer time period (as opposed to revising the night before) that involves organising revision himself.

For maths he needs to do maths to revise maths - has the school got a subscription to a website like mathswatch or hegartymaths where he can watch an explanation then try questions on it? If not corbettmaths.com/contents/ is free. Watch a video, do some questions, check answers, if correct move on, if wrong, try to figure out why.

For other subjects, has the school provided any guidance about how to revise?

Here's a website that teaches you how to study effectively: www.learningscientists.org/faq

I totally disagree with the posters advising to leave him to it in year 7. DC still need support and guidance in year 11, never mind year 7.

The first thing I would do is create a revision timetable with him- say 2 hours of revision on school nights and 2 hours on a Saturday. He doesn’t need to be doing hours of revision at this stage but the important thing is getting him into and following a study routine.

Ime year 7 really struggle with focus when it comes to home study, so you want to make sure he’s in a really distraction free environment with no phone or noise etc. Asking him to stay in uniform after school until he’s finished his work might help him stay in a school mindset.

You then need to look at what revision techniques work for him. There are plenty of YouTube videos on this so I won’t go into detail, but I would really help him try different strategies and see what suits him best.

If actually getting him down to work is the issue, have him earn his screen time through following his timetable.

Why does he need to revise for exams in Year 7? What exams are they and what consequences will flow from him "failing" them or underperforming?

@jimmyhill

Why does he need to revise for exams in Year 7? What exams are they and what consequences will flow from him "failing" them or underperforming?

He needs to revise in order to learn how to revise and take exams.

If you wait until y11 when exams really matter you don't know what techniques work for you, how long you need for things etc.

Underperforming may also impact setting for next year.