7 hours a day revision for GCSEs!

[EllenJanethickerknickers]

Has anyone seen this article?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43599684

What do you think? Is 7 hours reasonable? He's got a point in a 'mindset' way that those who succeed are those who work for it but I think 7 hours a day revision is ridiculous, more than I did for my degree! Maybe that's why I got a 2:2!

I'm so glad my children aren't in the UK system anymore. dd has spent most of the Spring Break in bed (she's been in chronic pain for weeks so really needed the break). She works consistently hard, has excellent grades and will be taking just one exam at the end of the year. ds is studying hard for his first year finals at an excellent university so not having revised at school hasn't affected him. I'm not sure what the benefit of all the stress on young people is it seems to have got much worse since I was at school, and this is just for GCSEs!

I remember writing out my revision timetable for my GCSEs (1989) for the Easter hols and I started at 8am and did until 9pm (with breaks every couple of hours) most days but definitely more than 7 hours a day.

I remember writing out my revision timetable for my GCSEs (1989) for the Easter hols and I started at 8am and did until 9pm (with breaks every couple of hours) most days but definitely more than 7 hours a day.

I remember writing out my revision timetable for my GCSEs (1989) for the Easter hols and I started at 8am and did until 9pm (with breaks every couple of hours) most days but definitely more than 7 hours a day.

Yeah or is much worse nooka.

Ds2 couldn’t do 7 hours - even the idea of it would make him too stressed. He does about 4 hours, but still does other stuff (still doing a lot of dance/drama). Yesterday he met up with some mates to play badminton. I’d rather he was doing that than in his room revising.

He’s never done any revision at all until this year for any exams so it’s a lot for him. I agree with Justine’s comments tbh. He might want to do more hours as he crams particular subjects closer to the exams, but I wouldn’t want to see him do more now.

Ds2 is a performer - does well under pressure and i’m sure will be fine during the exams. He’ll probably enjoy them in a weird way.

Ds3 is only 13 but I worry more about him. He does not respond well to exams. If he felt he had to do 7 hours a day his anxiety would be so high he wouldn’t be able to do anything sensible anyway. My main aim when he does GCSE’s will be to get him through them with a sense of proportion & without completely going to pieces.

I wish schools put as much emphasis on mental health and wellbeing as they do on exams (actually ds3’s does, which is a large part of why we sent him there).

Oh and @nooka I did a double take at your ds being at the end of hiscfirst year of university - but of course he is. Where does the time go (etc etc)?

I used to do way more but I was a massive geek with a very pushy dad and I found the whole thing awful.

I burned out massively and ended up doing no more work for a levels or my degree because I had had enough.

So i think moderation is key!

I think that’s a lot but mine isn’t keen on revising and hard to really enforce it - we’ll see how their results go. She’s off skiing with the school the first week so will only have the 2nd week anyway.

I have an issue with the idea that there is a one size fits all solution. There just isn't

I absolutely agree that revision over Easter is necessary, but 'enough' differs between students. DD1 did about 4 hours a day last Easter, but she worked on a two days on, one day completely off rota. After Easter, we made sure that one day out of every weekend would be a revision-free day. That did end up with us going out and DD1 reciting key quotes from Macbeth or telling us all about photosynthesis no matter what we were doing at the time, but at least she got a break.

She got very good grades which got her into her 6th form courses no problem, so it worked for her.

I maybe in my own here but I’m encouraging my children NOT to revise for more than two hours a day for any of their exams. I’m a graduate with two post degree qualifications plus all the usual plethora of O levels and A levels before that. I worked in the Ciry for a long time but all this convinced me is that this “arms race” to frighten kids into studying for exams as if their life depended on it, is complete rubbish. I worked in corporate finance and it quickly became clear a lot of my clients had far less qualifications than me but were far more successful and dare I say happy! I’m already counselling my daughters not to see university as the automatic next step as I see absolutely no point in running up huge debts unless you’ve got a good reason to be there. I’m tired of hearing fellow parents complain to eldest D’s school that they want their children to do more GCSEs (only allowed to do 11max which surely is enough for any 14-16 year olds!)and complaining that they aren’t getting enough into Russell Group unis. Some of the children are so stressed it’s unbelievable. They are still children but are being scared into believing that if they should dare fail, their chances of success are over. It strikes me as a form of child cruelty. I’m pushing her school to come up with alternatives to uni and to keep their ethos of the importance of non academic skills and pastoral development but can see them being tackled by tiger parents at every turn. My experience is that successful people are usually doing something they believe in.

I would say a maximum of 4 hours per day.

Our school has 5 hours and 15 minutes of lesson time per day so that equates to just over 4 hours of learning time if you take off the start and end of the lesson for faffing settling down/packing up.

On study leave, student could study from 2 hours from 10.15am to 12.30pm (with a 15 min. break between the 2 hours), break for lunch until 1.15pm then study for 2 more hours and be finished by 3.30pm to play sport, practise a musical instrument or so other hobbies, socialise, watch TV, etc.

My dd plans to work between 7am and 6pm with an hour for lunch and frequent breaks.
She has not been pushed to do this, she’s just very driven.
Every child is different

But surely you're encouraging her not to do that? If she's starting work at 7, what time is she getting up? I know all children are different but that is insane for the holidays. Teenagers also need to get enough sleep, see their friends, ideally get some exercise.

I'm at your teens getting up so early to revise. My dd doesnt roll out of bed till at least 11

DS is doing 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. He's done sweet FA since his mocks. I'm sure I did loads more for my O-levels (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth).

When I was at school a couple of years I ago I used to do that amount of revision and did the same for my a-levels/degree. I'm very harsh on myself and if I'd done less work and not received good grades I'd have mentally beaten myself up. I don't know whether I could've got the same grades with less work but I've always excelled academically. For the average child I think 7 hours would be too much though.

We have to remember this man has an agenda : has only worked with the crème de la crème and is no part of the New schools Network and WLFS mob.

However... I do think the rest of his revision tips are worth reading. the 7 hours a day bit selects from his other bits of advice :

inews.co.uk/news/education/practical-tips-revision-revising-easter-holidays/

There is a HELL of a lot of content in GCSEs these days, less coursework, and students do too many GCSEs , on the whole (everyone at DS's school does RS, which is 2 exams to add to the workload...). If one was focused and driven, it could be an awful lot of revision : he does do the sums.

This is one of the reasons why so many schools stop actually teaching year 11 in about March : to begin the revision. Sigh.

Last year, my DS was probably putting in 4 hours a day (and he is an early riser) but much of it was unproductive staring.

now part not no part ... he is definitely a part!!

none of mine up/out of bed before midday....GCSE or no GCSE (or A levels for that matter)

I don't think it's unreasonable at all tbh.

I worked hard for my GCSEs - I'm sure that during the Easter holiday before I would have been doing similar. I achieved all As and A*s which I like to think was in part down to the revision.

Whether it's 7 hours or not I think any child doing their exams this summer should be dedicating most of the Easter holidays to revision. It's only 2 weeks!

Not everyone is aiming for all a’s A*’s though

Ds2 would be delighted with all 6 & over and a smattering of 7’s and the occasional 8. It’s more than enough for what he wants to do (& I write as someone who went to oxford with good O level results having been quite swotty - he’s not me).

He appeared at around lunchtime (having revised for a bit) outraged at the 7 hour a day suggestion on bbc news. I told him to ignore it.

He was then messaged and asked to take part in a performance at the end of the holidays. We checked rehearsal hours (3 hours this week, a bit more next), checked rehearsals don’t clash with school extra revision times (they were happy to work around him) and said yes. I reckon it’ll be a good break and better for his mental health than staring at books.

Quite a variety of opinion. I guess MN doesn't exactly equate to the average family dynamic as if you're looking on the education boards on a parenting site you are already more invested in your DC than average.

My DS will be sticking to 2 hours a day minimum. It might be rather scant but it's what he's happy to do so at least it's 2 hours of productive revision rather than hours of procrastination or generally glazed over 'reading through notes.'

Good luck everyone with their revision. Enjoy the break and too much chocolate tomorrow.

Even with the tougher GCSEs 7 hours a day would be overkill for brighter DCs if they have been working steadily through year 11. They have also a long period of exams for which stamina is required. Mine were fairly well motivated but by the last couple of weeks of exams they had lost all drive to revise.
I do agree that for many, especially previously laid back last minute boys, hard work over the preceding holiday to GCSE does no harm. However what might benefit them and what they will actually do are very different things

There isn't a one size fits small answer. I am dyslexic and poor short term memory is an issue for me. For every set of exams I have ever sat I have need to be doing 7-9 hour revision a day in the study leave and prior to that 3-4 hours in the evening after uni/college.
Will I be telling my DD she has to do this - No. she has had summer exams since year 3 (now year 9). Each year after the results are published I encourage her to reflect was she happy with the result, did she feel it reflected the amount of revision she did and with the benefit of hindsight would she have done her revision differently.
Friday was the first day of holidays and she drew up her revision schedule for her exams the first week in June. I suspect through the holidays she will be doing 2-3 hours a day.

My DS was a Harrow boy, but not under Lennon, however, during GCSEs and A levels he did do around 6/7 hours a day of revision during the Easter break. He did his own timetable and just got on with it. I don't know if he was like that because it was just what was expected at Harrow or if he is just that much of a focused individual. Probably a combination of the 2.