Ideas for supportive GCSE revision kit/ comfortable pen recommendations

[Volpini]

I‘m starting to get a bag together for my daughter as she locks in on the gruel slog that is GCSE revision.

Her revision is going well and I’ve ordered the Study Buddy kit thanks to other MNetters‘ posts.
Im looking to include more stationery, snacks etc. What do you all suggest will be useful but also help her feel supported?

Can I also ask for recommendations for „comfortable“ pens. DD has a stash of BICs but she’s finding the grip starts to get uncomfortable for the 8 point+ questions. Any recommendations?
thank you x

Watching with interest.

I have twins doing GCSEs. I plan on doing some batch baking over Easter.

What is the study buddy?

Yes, I think the batch cooking/ baking is a great idea x
thank you

You can buy grips to add to any pen to make it more comfortable to hold. If you Google something like ‘ergonomic pen grip’ you’ll find some potential options.

I don’t know what rules there are for the type of pens they use in their actual exams, eg whether it has to be biro, but another thing that tends to make people’s hands hurt when they write is pressing hard on the paper, which is generally necessary with a biro or a rollerball.

So, for revision if nothing else, a stack of felt tips or good quality, free-flowing gel pens might help.

It’s a long time since I did exams but as someone who writes by hand a lot, had to use Voltarol up to my elbow when I sat my finals at university, and has a slightly deformed finger from my awkward pen grip, I’m not inexperienced in this arena 😳

I only heard about it today when someone mentioned on a different thread that they were using it. As I understand it, you plug in your GCSEs and exam board and it creates a study plan covering all the topics you need to have covered/
I only signed up for it today so I can’t give you my own feedback on this!
Good luck with twins going through this x

Thank you so much! Great call on the pen grip. I seem to remember these!
I had got a stash of gel pens in my shopping bag but thought I’d ask the hive mind in case I’m missing a trick here!

Gel pens aren't ok as the ink fades when scanned. I think?

Stabilo curved pens?

DS did his GCSEs last year
He liked Pilot Ecoball and Zebra Z grip pens. I used to give him a new pen, a label-less water bottle and a post it note with subject/room/desk number every morning.

My eldest used stabilo.
My youngest used Uni ball air.

Wow that is incredibly organised and a great tip for my twins. Thanks.

Thanks for all this advice!

What DS mostly wanted was to be left alone and given the space to study. He absolutely refused to go away at Feb half term, Easter or May half term (by which point exams had started but he had something like 11 days between exams).

He’s not into highlighters and massive timetables, but he’s the most organised of souls (he went to a History mock having prepped for Spanish), so I essentially became his PA and made sure he was working on the right stuff. His exam timetable was pinned up in the kitchen, and I put everything on our shared family online Apple calendar. I made sure he had all the stationery he needled, drive him to/from before/after school revision sessions if there were no buses, made sure there was always cake! He stopped all other commitments for a whole, other than one concert he was playing in right at the beginning of his exams, but he built revision around it, and there was no expectation for him to help out at home for the duration of his exams. The thing he said he really appreciated was that, on exam days, I didn’t go to work until I knew he was on the bus. Our rural bus service is slightly unreliable, and although all his buses did turn up, he needed a plan b.

Good luck to all the GCSE candidates and their parents on this thread!

This is such a beautiful post. X Thank you

Sorry to hijack but which study buddy pack did you buy? I was looking at them yesterday. DD2 is doing GCSEs this summer and definitely needs help with organisation!

Hi, not hijacking at all. I cant say if it’s any good or not as it literally just arrived today and my daughter unpacked it 5 mins ago (possibly all a bit late in the day tbh) but it’s this:

https://thestudybuddy.com/the-gcse-revision-bundle/

wishing you a wind at your back!

This is great. Thanks.

Mine is in year 9 but ADHD/ASD so revision is a nightmare. Hopefully the study buddy will help.

Any other tips will be appreciated!

Just jumping on this as I've been down a similar rabbit hole trying to help DS get organised for his GCSEs this summer.

Someone at school pick-up mentioned an app called Swot Up to me last week. It's a revision app but what caught my attention is that it's matched to the actual exam board your child is doing, so Edexcel Maths gets different questions to AQA Maths etc. You put in their subjects and it generates practice questions and then marks them using AI, apparently based on how the real examiners mark.

I've only just signed up for the free trial so can't give a proper review yet, but DS had a go at some Geography questions last night and the feedback it gave him was genuinely useful - told him exactly where he'd dropped marks and why. He said it felt like having a tutor explain things.

It's free for 14 days so nothing to lose. The website is https://swotup.app/#examiner-intelligence if anyone fancies a look. Will report back once we've used it properly!

The pen tips on this thread are brilliant btw - just ordered some Stabilo curved ones! x

Thank you so much for this xxx