Workbooks and revision time advice needed

[Tenpercentgenius]

My DD is starting revision for her mock GCSEs next week.

Although teachers have been putting together comprehensive online resources, my DD would prefer to work through dedicated revision guides, which were also recommended and which I'd like to order today (CGP).

Most subjects have a guide and a workbook though - should I be buying both? I've taken to Mumsnet as every teacher or parent seems to have a different answer. They're about £9 each so that'll be about £125 if I get both for each subject!

Also, I've been told about 5 hours of revision per subject is recommended, which equates to about two hour slots, four days per week for the next four weeks. Does this seem ok/too much/too little?

While my DD is organised and wants to do well, I suddenly feel very responsible for her!

y11?

Personally it sounds too little. As in for my DDs at least they would need way more time than that for any content heavy subject. Has she been doing any revision up to now or is this starting from scratch?

@TeenTimesTwo It's Y10 revision for mock GCSEs.

I wouldn't bother with the work books, just the revision guides.

IMO CGP science revision books are worth their weight in gold. DS1 was given them by his very expensive high achieving school and without them he would have failled miserably because his science notes were non-existent. Similarly, DD has been told to get them by her science teachers with a stern warning to the mean amongst us (me) that the syllabus has changed with the 9-1 grading system and that new books had to be bought. The three science revision books will cost about £15.

Other subjects are not so good, I remember flicking through in Waterstones and thinking they wouldn't get used, but I may be wrong and someone else may come along and say get them. There is a lot of free stuff available online if you hunt about E.g. for history google Mrbuddhistory or Mrallsophistory. And never underestimate bitesize.

Before purchasing guides en masse I would ask the school whether they are going to offer them at a discount at the start of y11 (which I think is too late but it seems to be what our school does).

I agree that the science revision guides may well be a must at some point. I have already started using them with DD2 in y9, and also in fact the RS guide as she has started the syllabus in both those subjects and her notes aren't good enough quality to revise from.

As it is y10 exams the time sounds more reasonable, though if everything so far covered is being included it still sounds a bit light for some subjects to me. But it is so dependent on the child and how the school organises things. If they have been having regular end of topics tests they will need less time than if they have just been ploughing through the content.

One thing we found with DD1 was that topics/papers properly revised for y10 exams or y11 mocks were much easier to re-revise for the real thing compared with topics being learned for the first time.

As a science HOD, we provide the students with cgp revision guides and workbooks. I think the workbooks are really good actually. Good way to check understanding. My yr10s think they are fab.

I'd also recommend freesciencelessons on YouTube.

Just make sure that any you do get are for the exam board and syllabus that your DD is doing. There are different ones eg Edexcel, AQA etc.

Some schools offer subscriptions to online resources for free and some kids prefer these to workbooks. You can Google terms like "GCSE questions about vectors" and get websites offering this for free.