Tell me what is wrong with this GCSE revision timetable....

[IfYouCantSeeMyMirrors]

….which I have made up. Child due to sit GCSEs in summer 2020 - reasonably bright, reasonably amenable, and not that bothered one way or the other.

Here's my idea in brief: 200 hours of revision, starting from the New Year. (Child sorts out what actually needs to be revised before then and retrieves books from the rubbish tip of bedroom.) To be done in 1-hour slots. 2 hours per night for 3 nights of the school week (with the rest of the time taken up with activities and generally slobbing about), 5 hours for one day of the weekend (the other day at their intermittent Saturday job or relaxing).

Any homework given will be done during those 'work periods' too. During the Easter and May holidays, most days will be 5-hour revision days, making up for the time lost to that.

200 hours, 10 subjects, 20 hours for each. Divide each subject into ten 'parts' and revise each part twice.

Sounds perfect to me. What's wrong with it? This is my first child through the system, but I have more to come....

Our (well Ds) mocks are next month. He is so laid back about them though.

It needs to be in shorter bursts of 25mins max then a break. Time for sport/hobbies/relaxation should be timetables into it.

My guess would be that they have given the guide to parents to open up a discussion with their children about how to revise and for the students to see that home and school both play a role in their final outcome.

It's fairly common for some families to take the approach that school should o intervention every night, that if their child attends revision sessions then that's their work done etc.

Things have to fit the child, their strengths and their weaknesses as well as their wider social schedule.

For example, someone who struggles with slower processing would be best starting on flash cards and being quizzed on them by their parents from the start of y11 (probably having bought a set to relieve stress). They could do 15 mins a day, 5 days a week for their core subjects.

Another student does a lot of music and drama so they know that December is really busy with concerts and shows, so they may decide that they want to tread water until the new year and then do more intense revision.

Another might have regular sporting commitments so 2 evenings a week and all day Saturday are out of the question, so they'll probably have to make a revision plan that involves 3-4 hours a night on other days in order to have the time to do what they enjoy.

I do think shorter sessions with more breaks might be more efficient- maybe consider 20-30 minute blocks, with short breaks in between (obviously with some flexibility for homework).

I also agree with other posters that not all subjects are alike- so using the same strategy for each subject won't necessarily be effective. Some subjects e.g. MFL/Maths may benefit from regular short bursts of practice, whilst others e.g. Art may need longer focused periods of work.

I agree though that now is the time to be doing things like making flashcards/revision notes so that they are ready for when revision starts in earnest, and there is no harm in buying a revision guide now to help support work done in class.

I have a ds the same age. School asked us to plan a revision timetable to discuss with form tutors at a parent's consultation meeting. I've had little formal input for years, as he's very self motivated, and we nearly fell out over this!

In the end, we agreed to go to the meeting and tell the teacher that DS would sort out his revision as and how he needed it. And that wouldn't be prescribing how long and when he studied.

She laughed, said she absolutely agreed, and to let him get on with it.

As it turned out, he's just started some mock mocks, and asked me to through some history for 2 1/2 hours on Saturday, and then spent about four hours testing himself on biology (seneca) yesterday, so I'm just going to leave him to it unless he asks.

I did an A level last year (for, er, fun) and I found the website GetRevising really helpful.

It has a revision planner tool to help plan revision slots around regular activities, school work etc, and automatically logs free time too. Worth a look to see what it comes up with as a revision schedule for your DC?

Loads of other resources on there: you can search subjects by examining board and topic, and make your own resources too. I made flashcards, mind maps, uploaded notes ... Really useful.

(Not just for A levels, btw, but from GCSE right through)

Just checked with my husband who is a retired grammar school A level Teacher, and he said he would revise for 5 hours at a time!

Thank you for all those responses - some very helpful things there. There is clearly a wide range of what is considered an acceptable or realistic amount of revision.

It isn't about how much time is spent doing revision it is about whether they are revising effectively. Ds1 is now in year 12, they had November and February mocks so he was doing homework for the current topics and revising for the November mocks covering previous topics.

I think your school are using it to open up a discussion about revision. Ds did his own timetable but often found he covered a topic quicker than he thought so couldn't stick to this rigid X number of minutes of this or that.

The ones he felt had the most content were History and English Lit in terms of remembering facts and figures. Ds had made flash cards which enabled me to test him.

Some children need a parent/teacher breathing down their neck to revise, others just get on with it. Some know how to revise effectively (ie Ds hated mind-maps and preferred flash cards) some fanny around for 3 hours without actually revising or retaining the knowledge. One size does not fit all.

Dd did her GCSE’s 18 months ago. She did very well.

She started her revision over the Christmas holidays ready for January mocks. She generally did a couple of hours a day 5 days a week.

After the mocks she was doing around an hour a night and a couple of hours at the weekend up until the exams.

Ds has started his revision earlier (over Oct half term) but his mocks are 1st week of Dec. He’s doing 2 x 20 minute sessions a night plus the same o a Saturday.

DD has mocks in January and her school has stated that her year should be doing 2.5 hours a night, with 6 hours a day at weekends. They actually told them that from the start of year 10 and reiterated it for half term ( 6 hours a day, either 3x2 hours or 2x3 hours, 5/6 days a week over the fortnight holiday).

DD has ADHD, so everything takes her much longer to learn, but, conversely, she can't concentrate for that amount of time in one go.
She can't organise herself, so I am having to micromanage her revision - what/when/how.
I've bought her revision guides, flash cards, she's using online resources, past papers etc.

That's quite frankly ridiculous piccolo. It's a sure fire way to burn out. Both of my two dance/do music/perform to a high level so that was never going to happen anyway.

Dd1 started after most recent half term. She is doing 2 topics a night - no time limit, just for as long as it takes. She has ASC and tbh if I said 'revise this for one hour' she would spend half of that lining up pens and digging out every single worksheet ever. So we just say e.g. 'atomic structure and act 1 of Macbeth tonight' and that's what she does.

No idea if it'll work for her though. She's been struggling quite seriously since about halfway through year 8 (after breezing through primary) and gets no help as 'not autistic enough' apparently.

Sorry, I realise that's been no help to the OP. I must have needed to offload more than I thought .

I agree, comefromaway, it smacks of the school absolving themselves of responsibility by putting the onus on the pupils - " we've told you what you need to do, so if you don't do it, it's your problem".

No input about how to revise, how to organise revision etc.
Needless to say, DD is just chipping away at it, day by day - that's all she can do.

My ds (who is autistic) loves Senecca. He can't revise in the normal way that dd did by reading notes and summarising etc. Senecca sort of does the organisation for him. I know it's not optimum and he should be using a variety of methods but at the moment it is working for him.

Ds's school also held a parent/child revision evening with handouts on revision techniques, how to make a timetable, how to recognise your learning styles etc.

DD likes Seneca too, although she's only using the free version at the moment.
The new version Bitesize quizzes seem good, too.

The most useful thing my DD did was making flash cards.This meant we revised together so she didn't feel isolated in her room.
She covered subjects and did a set for thing she got wrong in tests etc.
I never want to see another flash card again.
We are also rural but I did rearrange work to get her to as many revision classes as she wanted.
It's a tough year for all involved.

I don’t know if this is useful but I was never shown how to revise and my revision was much a waste of time. The best support I can imagine is with exam technique, use of mocks and the syllabus, and understanding what I will need to know for the exam. I used to just rewrite notes and read them and it was useless

No need to apologise @Bohemienne - it's a situation I entirely appreciate....

I should reiterate that the school does not organise revision sessions outside of school time (due to transport issues). They are pretty manic about revision within school time, but I gather from parents from the year above that it's not a great help.

The timetable suggested by @Alsoplayspiccolo is very similar to that suggested by my child's school and is the very reason I embarked on my own attempt!

I would like to try to avoid the stress that seems to engulf some families in the immediate run-up to GCSEs. It's a marathon, not a sprint, isn't it (at least until the last few yards)? If my child does a steady amount of work from January onwards, without ever over-working, then that sounds better to me than doing nothing till Easter and then everyone being worried and stressed and working through the night....

It's interesting that some people think this is micro-managing, whereas others recommend quite a lot of input, with regard to testing on flashcards and so on. My parents never tested me or anything like that and I think it's unlikely to be something my child is interested in doing with me.

Overall, I suppose, I'm trying to think what the least stressful way might be to cover a reasonable amount of the syllabus. We're not going for 9s - but a good crop of 7s is not out of reach.

No need to apologise @Bohemienne - it's a situation I entirely appreciate....

I should reiterate that the school does not organise revision sessions outside of school time (due to transport issues). They are pretty manic about revision within school time, but I gather from parents from the year above that it's not a great help.

The timetable suggested by @Alsoplayspiccolo is very similar to that suggested by my child's school and is the very reason I embarked on my own attempt!

I would like to try to avoid the stress that seems to engulf some families in the immediate run-up to GCSEs. It's a marathon, not a sprint, isn't it (at least until the last few yards)? If my child does a steady amount of work from January onwards, without ever over-working, then that sounds better to me than doing nothing till Easter and then everyone being worried and stressed and working through the night....

It's interesting that some people think this is micro-managing, whereas others recommend quite a lot of input, with regard to testing on flashcards and so on. My parents never tested me or anything like that and I think it's unlikely to be something my child is interested in doing with me.

Overall, I suppose, I'm trying to think what the least stressful way might be to cover a reasonable amount of the syllabus. We're not going for 9s - but a good crop of 7s is not out of reach.

That assumes he needs to revise equally for all subjects and he probably doesn’t. Regular revision is more important than time spent - even 10 mins spent everyday reviewing work from class at home before doing homework might be enough to get top marks for some GCSE subjects. While 2 hours might not be enough for others.

You need to review his existing marks, talk to his teacher, and then work with him to draw out a realistic revision plan (with additional tutition in any subjects as required).

You need to break up the time, so 30 minutes of revision, a cup of tea and maybe a snack, another 30 minutes, then half an hour of something else, then half an hour again of revision.
Five hours in one chunk means nothing will ever go in, 2.5 hours each day of the weekend is more achievable, less daunting, and means more productivity because they think they have less time to cover whatever they've chosen to cover. Subjects need to be chosen to revise each session, for example photosynthesis, Shakespeare, and Pythagorus theory in those half an hour slots. Writing out revision cards to use in the future counts as revision too, and is a good way of getting the information to stick.
Also I was expected to be doing an hour or two of homework on top of my two hours of revision each night (I didn't, I went to study groups at lunchtime because studying at home was hard) but putting revision and homework together actually removes the time for revision.
Make sure all revision is done by hand, as typing or reading doesn't really make the information stick as well - when I was revising for my french speaking I would write out a line at a time over and over until it filled a a4 whiteboard, then rub it al out and try to write it from memory. Then repeat with the next line, then put the two lines together and write those out to fill the whiteboard. I also ended up writing about thirty revision cards for the same thing, just changing the wording, and doing shorthand notes of my class notes then trying to translate them into full again. It was long and at times I'd realise I'd been sat there for nearly an hour and nothing was going in anymore so I'd get up and go for a wander, then get back to it.
On holidays I'd keep it to 4 hours max each day, and split those hours up too so an hour in the morning then a day out then an hour before tea then two hours after tea then chill out for an hour before bed.
Be prepared for revision notes stuck to cereal boxes, the bathroom door, the shower, the top of the tv, and everywhere else 😂
Also make sure no music or background noise is present when trying to revise, people have sat there and written out lyrics to the song they were listening to rather than actual information! Revision songs such as the physics wave one are good for retaining the information though as they're so catchy, three years later I still remember bits of it! Here it is: and there's others in the suggested bit.
Also revision needs to start before new year, as you pointed out, some stuff will have been done a year ago already and it isn't revisited that often once it's been done.