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....

I remember my GCSE revision consisting of writing out bullet points of information. Writing it down meant it was all fresh in my mind. I'd revise until I felt I needed a break- go off and do something else- then back to it. I didn't need any help from my parents, they didn't need to tell me to do it. For all they knew I hadn't revised at all!

I can already see that my 10 year old son will need a different approach though, when the time comes!

If you hothouse the hell out of him at this stage you risk him burning out. Where is the space for him to just be, he's still a child and he needs some headspace. Also A levels are coming up and then potentially uni - he will need to be self motivated and understand his own drive to study. He needs to learn how to do this kind of thing himself.

If you force him into this really over the top pattern you also risk rebellion and switching off, surely?

Im doing my GCSEs this year and doing a 5 hour revision session would kill me. The teachers at my school teach us that we should revise with 30 minute intervals with a 5-10 mins break inbetween because thats how much our brain can handle at one time, so doing a 5 hour revision session is kind of pointless

Tbh, for someone not intending to micromanage, you seem to be putting forward a pretty detailed plan for doing just that...

Did the school really ask parents to come up with something to be imposed on their DC, or to work with their DC to come up with some kind of framework?

Mercifully, although our DC's schools may have suggested revision strategies that we might like to encourage them to try out, expected parental input has been restricted to making sure that the DC have somewhere quiet to work, get adequate rest, food and water etc.

Exactly paddy what suits your child and each child is different and of different ability. Some are blessed with not having to work hard to get high grades and others have to put a lot more work into it. And it is your child that has to learn to organise themselves to achieve what they want. After all they are the ones sitting the exams. Micromanagement will not help them to cope with the next step of A levels etc.

Of course you have breaks in a revision session. You don't sit there for X number of solid hours!

Depends on your kid. If he is unlikely to come up with a realistic timetable himself I think it is reasonable to help him do this. Good point about starting early and working steady.

The important part is that you should check after 2 weeks that whatever plan he is doing is working or whether he is ‘working my while playing on his phone. So be prepared to check his learning (ie test him on word lists, science definitions, maths problems) - ie is he improving? And change the plan if not. I suggest you start with something that there is low hanging fruit to pick and easily testable so you can demonstrate to him that it is working and he should continue.

The first thing is how your child works.

I like to do a biot a day, my brother would do the week before panic revise, we both did O levels.

Way way back in the 1980s my old headmistress advised that for maths and English we should do 15 mins a day.

For maths the 15 mins is a good idea, you can do a few short questions or one or two longer ones in that time, if you can't or you get the answers wrong then that topic is one you need to revise.

Your dc should aim to pick up 1 mank per minute.

Look at the structure of other subjects, so for my History O Level we had to write a number of essays, it worked out about 30 mins per essay so revision was about producing an essay in 30 mins.

IMHO revision is in 2 parts, one is making sure you understand the topic and the other is exam technique ie knowing you can write an essay in a set time.

Your child also needs breaks.

Also make sure they can cope with silence, it is something quite rare these days and some children find exam rooms intimidating because they do not experience silence.

Sounds over-managing.
5 hours at the weekend?
My Ds1 is due to sit his GCSE's this summer too.

Sost DD does qualify for extra time, has done since y7. Unfortunately that doesn't help with stamina for revision, and extra time is a double edged sword when you realise she will have a nearly 3hr marathon for English Lit. Just hoping she doesn't have another exam on the same day when the time comes!

No one needs 8&9s to do A levels. That has to be an in-school requirement keeping their A level results high! The only thing that seems to need an 8 is FM.

I sat my GCSEs 2 years ago, and only started revising around Easter time. I still managed to achieve mostly 8s (A*). However, it is totally dependent on the individual. Personally, I found subjects such as English easy and didn't need to revise them (aside from learning quotes etc.) And focused on things I struggled with like maths. Also worth noting - grades received in the mock exams tend to be very different to the final grades achieved in the real exams. They use stricter grade boundaries on the mocks, so it is harder to get good grades. For context, I got mainly 4s, 5s and 6s in my mocks (C's and Bs) but only a few months later my grades were very different with honestly not much revision put in. Obviously I would recommend to revise, but perhaps talk to your child about how much time they want to put in and be more focused on specific things your child struggles with, to avoid burning out etc.
Best of luck!

Why not let them take responsibility for their own learning/revision? I'm sure the school we be offering some kind of revision programme.

I'd be mindful of pushing revision, perhaps ask them to design their own TT, covering 20 mins, then a break. More than 20 and the brain is saturated.

I understand completely that you are trying to help, but you may find that the help is really resented. Perhaps encourage with good snacks and rewards if they choose to revise. X

If I was handed a study plan like that, that laid out all my down time for the coming months, I’d become incredibly demotivated.

Anecdotally, as the youngest of four, my parents had been through it all before and just left me to it. Their reasoning being that forced study wouldn’t make me study. I did very well. My best friend, who was in all the same top sets as me and an only child, was given a ridiculous regime. She missed out on loads of activities with her pals, became incredibly unhappy and resentful of her parents and did very poorly.

Well....for those asking why I think it's my responsibility, I don't! If you read my previous responses, you'll see why I'm doing this. It's certainly an interesting exercise though, including in discovering what other people and other schools suggest.

There seem to be two main points on this thread:

All children are different
Children need to come up with their own exam timetable, otherwise they won't follow it.

However, as all children are different, it does follow that SOME children are unlikely to come up with their own exam timetable, but might be perfectly happy to follow someone else's. Just as they are perfectly happy to follow their school timetable for subjects, or their schedule for their Saturday job.....

I study with Open Uni and they don't recommend studying for more than an hour without a ten minute break.

Personally my parents never set me a timetable. I was trusted to revise what was needed and if I failed it was my own fault. I passed everything.

I actually didn't have a revision time table at all. I just picked what I wanted to revise, when I wanted to.

Schools can be slightly insane about these things - it would really concern me that making a child do 12 hours' revision at weekends and 2.5 hours a night from Year 10 onwards would either put them off completely or drive them into a breakdown. It's a basic principle anyway that revision is ineffective unless you have breaks at least every two hours.

I remember at one stage in my education we were told around a month after a course started that if we weren't already doing four hours' extra work a day we were doomed to ignominious failure. Fortunately, despite the fact that up to that point I was doing maybe half an hour extra and I never achieved the four hours at any point, I passed quite easily.

My son sat his 2 years ago. I think what you have done is fine. Our school (and all of my mum friends) said do a revision timetable so I wasn’t going to be that parent that didn’t. My son started after Feb half term holidays. He used study guides as the index. School didn’t provide any revision sessions so if I hadn’t helped him he wouldn’t have bothered. My parents didn’t / couldn’t help me but I can help my kids to have a good start in life. I think they need all the help they can get.

As another poster points out we are all different. I “wing” it on holidays and book everything myself, others like a fully scheduled holiday. It’s the same with kids. Some need help and others don’t. Good luck if you have the 9 graded child but I don’t and mine need help leading to organise.

It’s easier in terms of revision if they give more weight to the things they don’t know and devise a timetable around that. Dd did this all by herself last year. But she was one of those kids self driven kids who could do it herself and she got v good results in the summer. She would ask me to test her on stuff a bit, but the support I provided was emotional rather than being involved in a practical way. Tbh this was a hard slog for me because she’s a blinking drama queen and it was no less of a test of my parenting skills.

Ds however (he has asd) needed practical help in organising a plan and found it hard to judge what subjects needed more time and I couldn’t see inside his brain to help him work it out . We therefore devised a more blanket approach at first ( much like in your first post) and it was based more on time attached to subjects and giving equal time to each. He needed direction at all times , did not really understand the concept of ‘revision’ and couldn’t have been more laid back about the exams . As time went on, we could see where he was likely to bomb and adjusted timetable. He did ok.. more of a range of grades.
So yes! - totally depends on the child and both experiences felt pretty hard going as a parent at the time.
Good luck!

Each child is different, of course, but mine wouldn't revise according to a schedule I drew up. He didn't do much revision at all at home, but did attend school revision sessions. The motivation has got to come from themselves. And if it causes stress at home then it's probably counter-productive anyway.

Personally I think you should focus on learning yourself about effective evidence based study techniques, and build the plan around that having taught your kid how to effectively study. Check out Ali Abdal on YouTube - you want to research about spaced repetition and active recall. They are proven to be (by far) the most effective and efficient methods, giving you the most bang for your buck per hour of revision. Writing and rewriting notes and highlighting is basically pointless (has been shown to be so through many different studies), so don't let your child fall into the trap of doing this. If you can teach effective techniques then this is a skill that will benefit them hugely for the rest of their life.

I’m a secondary school teacher and mother of three who’ve been through it. It’s a terrible idea. For a start you’re not the one doing the exams. Children need to organise themselves. Have conversations and encourage by all means but this is crazy!

Some kids won’t organise themselves!

Some kids can't organise themselves!