GCSE Revision - how much should they be doing ?

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My DD is sitting her exams in the summer. A teacher has told her she should be doing 3-4 hours revision per subject every week. As she is doing 10 GCSE's that's 30-40 hours revision on top of school.

My DD is trying to work out a plan where she can fit this much in but I'm worried that she will burn herself out before the exams start. How much revision are your children being asked to do at this stage ?

Well, if he's capable of all 9s, more power to him. Our school doesn't predict 9s because they are dependent on national scores and it's not possible to predict what those are going to be. Our focus is on getting the maximum grades in the subjects she wants to do for A-levels (Biology, History, 3rd not yet decided), 8 or 9 in English (mock was 8 in lit, 9 in lang), 8 in French and Drama and 7s in the sciences except for Physics where we'll be ecstatic with a 6.

As the school has not finished the syllabuses, my son needs to reactive topical qns on content already covered. If you look at ast years grade boundaries, and uplift raw scores by 5 marks, that will give you an indication for boundaries 5his year. I used Eng Lang and Maths comparisons in 17 vs 18.

portico your system for estimating grade boundaries assumes that they will only ever go up!

It sounds as if starting GCSEs in Yr10 rather than Yr 9 is a real drawback - I wonder whether it will end up becoming a rare exception? I can see issues on both sides - my DDs were very happy to specialise early, drop subjects they had no interest in (Music, DT, ICT/Computing) and choose what they wanted to do. Interestingly enough, Drama has turned out to be a godsend for my DD2, she's gone from being withdrawn and shy to being confident and outgoing, bold enough to apply to be a prefect (and succeed) and a peer mentor (ditto) as well as tying in really well with what she's doing in English. On the other hand, some of the students in her year ended up changing or dropping in Yr 9 because their choices were not working out.

DD2's school hasn't finished History, Geography and one bit of Biology - the rest is all done and lessons are revision. We're very lucky.

Re grade boundaries, I can only go on on Eng and Maths in 17 vs 18 for trends.

I agree with you about 3 year GCSEs. Boys ar at grammar school, and I know the school is able to work at pace. But 3 years would be easier for Eng Lit and Geography

portico It is not, however, about how many hours you put in. You could do all the hours available and still not improve. Your DC's are obviously already very capable children. My eldest DD was the same. She didn't do any revision at all until Easter, and got 11 A*'s in old money. Quality always trumps quantity.

Hi Older
Last summer I put together topic based legacy questions for all subjects, along with mark schemes. Son needs to just do those.

We’re spending a disproportionate amount of time on Eng, especially Lit

portico Your son must be very committed/self disciplined.
My DS drags himself out of bed at 7.45am to leave at 8.05am (10 minute cycle ride to school).
There is no way on earth I could persuade him to get up earlier and complete an hour's study before school.

Personally I think a balance somewhere between OlderThan and Portico would seem about right. But it does depend a lot on the particular DC and what they can cope with, and what school does in terms of mocks etc etc.

Hi Red
He’s fairly disciplined at night, though always on iPhone when we go to his room. I wake him up at 630, bring him breakfast, so he does about an hour 645 to 745 - then he has a break of1 hour before he goes to school

Hi Teen
Tbh, with 4 months to first exam, now is the time to start putting in the work. I only started with son last week. Wished I’d started in November actually. Lesson learned for son 2

Regarding English lit my ds really worked on his poetry and thankfully has a brilliant memory which served him well.
He also revised key quotes from each of the three novels to cover any of the past common themes. He said that as long as you know key quotes that it really helps.

His 3 novels were Romeo and Juliet, A Christmas Carol ( really struggled with that one ) and Blood Brothers which he loved and is also doing for GCSE drama so knew it inside out.

It's a stressful time isn't it? Roll on end of June :)

Dd is good at remembering song lyrics so treated the poetry in the same way. She's not started learning quotes for Frankenstein, Romeo and Juliet and An Inspector Calls yet.

lanalon if your kid got all 8 in mocks then I would have a word with the school about getting some balance. Too much pressure on a kid that bright is easily counterproductive.

lanalon if your kid got all 8 in mocks then I would have a word with the school about getting some balance. Too much pressure on a kid that bright is easily counterproductive.