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 think it's great you're being so supportive - not many parents would be as proactive! The idea in theory is good but will need tweaking in practice. Some subjects, for example the sciences, will need more revision than others due to the time needed to revise both content and then the application of it. You could be very helpful and print off past papers and mark schemes for your child to complete and then mark in the next session? This could be done in the Easter holidays as they should have covered the vast majority of content by then. Good luck with it - wish all parents were this invested!

So many different views.....! As everyone says, I do know my own child best - I know how likely they are to organise themselves and I understand the kind of thing likely to be on offer from the school and how they will engage with that. I was a completely self-motivated child myself, the kind who would happily draw up and stick to my own revision plan (could you guess that?). My eldest child, however, much like some other members of my family, is utterly laid back. Will happily revise if given a bit of a structure (and don't panic, that proposed structure would just be the starting point of any conversation), but will equally happily do zero revision. Will be equally happy to achieve 9 very low marks and equally happy with 9 fairly high marks. The latter seems to me to be the preferable option and my suggested timetable is an attempt (and not a perfect one, clearly) to achieve that with the absolute minimum of stress.

I may have to stop posting and get on with some work now!

I would say in general boys will need more help than girls. My DS needs help prioritising, he asks for help. I don't help him revise other than the language oral-he likes to practise and same with vocab. The rest is down to him, he will be getting help through the school but I am most definitely helping him with his revision plan.
My other DS needs no help whatsover-so it is down to each individual child. Do what is right and what they ask for help for.

Your poor child!
What is wrong with it is they wont follow it because you made it. If they want to revise they should make their own timetable.
I never really understood revising, I either knew it and understood or I didn't. Memorising stuff doesn't help me so that would have been a waste of time.
I am a mature student now and I cannot work 5 hours in a row especially not on a weekend or every weekend.

DS1 is in year 10 at an academically selective independent.

We had a parents GCSE support session at the beginning of year 10. We were told they should be doing 90 minutes of revision every weekday evening in year 10 (plus any homework set - generally two per evening). That means going through what they've been doing in class, distilling it into revision notes to accompany their full class notes and making sure that they understand and have taken it in properly. That way, when they come to Year 11, they have a good set of notes from which to revise properly.

Why not let them take responsibility for their own learning/revision?

We didn't get much back from the testing and school SENCO - very little on how to help with problems that sent our child to them. They did come back and say that there were memory issues - not enough to trigger extra time or additional help - but that revision would be an area of weakness.

I also want to avoid them panicking and doing nothing as it all seems overwhelming or going to peices in exams - as one of my siblings used to do.

Finding that balance between letting them take charge and making sure some things are actually done is hard.

Not exactly a mom here, I just passed my GCSEs in 2019 and I got 2 grade 9s = A* , 3 grade 8s =A a grade 7 = A (which is currently being re marked fo see if i can get an 8) and a 6 = B and a 1 = F, i got the grade 1 in history as i was persuaded to take it but i did not like it and was not allowed to change subject, 6 was in english and the 7 was in geography and the 8s were in maths, biology, computer science, my grade 9s were in physics and maths.

I did not revise until about 3 weeks before the exams and I am not one of those students who was really good at stuff cause most of my predicted grades were 4s and 5s, some even being 3s. The point being is that revision at GCSE has almost no value, it will take the pressure off a bit but there honestly isn't much pressure anyway, I did 3 - 5 hours of revision per subject to get my grades (besides history) and i did perfectly fine, i know people who have done no revision and passed all of their GCSEs, just dont worry about it and dont force ur child to stick to a revision schedule as that is kinda cringe and they will not like it. It is better to just give them a guiding hand rather than doing everything for them cause if they want to go on to do A levels ( which I am currently doing) they will need to master their time themselves and learn how to plan, giving them that independence at GCSE let's them get used go it so it's less of a shock having to manage your free time all the time at A level. Unless you want them to get straight grade 9s which for reference a grade 9 is minimum top 3% and usually around top 2- 2.5% once the distro curve for Mark's and grades is worked out just leave them be cause GCSEs are super easy and schools always play up the importance of them but in reality they will be worthless after 2 years cause grades are decided on proportions in the year so if everyone that year is really dumb grade boundaries will be lower (this has almost never been the case as they always rise year on year) so just chillax and let ur kid do all the work.

I would hazard a guess that most successful adults worked out their own revision timetables (or not!) at this stage.

Let you kid get on with it themselves. Your job is to enable them to be able to revise (quiet, space, resources, be on hand, support).

Shmarv Sorry, but I think you are giving really bad advice. 3-5 hours of revision per exam in total and only starting 3 weeks before exams is just plain ridiculous as general expectation.

Either you are very bright, or your school laid on loads of revision in school, or you are misleading us. If that really is all you did, think what you could have achieved if you had put more effort in.

DS isn't organising himself yet. Also not going to lunchtime revision sessions. I'm keeping out of it until I see mock results end of Jan. I've said if those are way off what he is capable of then sport will be cut back (he does loads) and I will impose a timetable - blocks of time not specifying what topics.

If I was your child I would look at that and go and hide under the duvet....

Either you are very bright, or your school laid on loads of revision in school

I saw teachers on here saying they often build in revision time in lessons at GCSE and their students seem completely unware of it with some claiming they'd done none or bare minimum..

DC school is rushing through 2 year courses in 12 months, doing early exams and battling teacher shortages and in one subject they've found ks3 stuff the'd expect to build on hadn't been covered due to shortages and reorganisation. I'm sure teacher are still trying their best - but I expect there's less scope for that in many subjects than ideal.

Yes, dd's teachers spent almost the whole of the term from Easter until exams started doing revision in class. They didn't have study leave.

I saw teachers on here saying they often build in revision time in lessons at GCSE and their students seem completely unware of it with some claiming they'd done none or bare minimum
I think too often students (and parents) can seem to think that more is better so they may slack off in the 8-10 hours of core subjects a week, put 60% effort into homework but then expect staff to run holiday revision sessions or after school sessions etc.

I would say on average I do around 30-40 mins of revision a week of previous topics at GCSE starting from y10.
Homework tasks are often linked to previous topics (Eg. Half term 2 homeworks are based on half term 1 content).
I don't believe in running staff into the ground and I also don't believe there is any need to excessive intervention and additional lessons for most students if they are working hard in class, completing homework properly, and revising for their assessments.

Sadly, some parents/students seem to think the measure of success and good teaching is:

• lots of homework (regardless of how much effort goes into completing it)
• lots of red pen in exercise books (regardless of whether it had any impact)
• lots of additional intervention
• lots of revision sessions available (regardless of whether DC are doing any at home)
• lots of holiday revision sessions
• finishing the course early (even though that often means that content had been rushed in order to get to "revision" and the "revision" is usually "re-teaching material was was ineffectively covered first time round")

Interestingly, all things that are low impact and high workload on staff with limited effort required from students.

ShmarvDogg
That's terrible advice and also your own presentation of your grades isn't accurate.

9 - not an A* (it's the top X% of an A)
8 - not an A (it's approximately the bottom of an A and the top of an A)
7 - is the lower end of the old A

That's because 3 grades have been created out of 2. Same for B/C and 4/5/6.

Equally you are talking nonsense on grades going up every year too. The new courses are norm referenced

It sounds very much like a ramble to the effect of "I did no work and did well so working hard is a waste of time" aka the same argument as "I smoked when pregnant and didn't do me harm...I had 3 pints and drove home and didn't do me harm..."

Shmarv I find it interesting that you say revision is unnecessary, but then you failed the subject you didn't revise.

Actually I suspect you worked consistently through your courses (other than history), probably consolidating (aka revision) as you went along. And teachers also included tests and consolidation/revision which may or may not have been obvious to you. Which is the ideal way to do things. however, some of us on this thread have children that haven't worked consistently and won't pass their GCSEs unless they do some more focused work, preferably over a longer period of time. Which I think is what OP was aiming for, even if her method probably wasn't quite right.

I would have been furious if my parents had told me when, how and how long to revise for any of my exams. I would have found it patronising and offensive. Fortunately, my children are like me, so I don't have to worry about this! How can a parent possibly know how many hours revision their child needs to do for each subject? That's just ridiculous. They would have to be studying the subjects alongside their child and constantly testing them on their knowledge to have the faintest idea - no other way of knowing whether their aggravating suggestions are helpful or counterproductive.

I was a lazy sod. Wish my parents had told me to get my arse in gear.

Well, yes, @walkaround, that is fortunate....

As a person who has just done my GCSEs this past year(I’m 16 and in college) I can assure you that doing that much revision is pointless.

I did 3 hours a week, in 30 minute session from February. I passed all 9 GCSEs and got over 5s in all.

I knew people who were doing 5+ hours a week and were mentally and physically drained from doing that much revision after school.

With revision it’s not what you do it’s how you do it, I’ve got some YouTube videos from a guy that helped me revise

There is only a couple but he has more incredible revision tips that you can look at with your child, also a very good website to use is ‘seneca’.

Any other questions just ask :)

I don’t think you can say that each subject needs the same amount of time. Dd spent 0 hours on revision for Spanish, less than 20 for maths and lots more hours (I think) on other content heavy subjects like history and biology.
To be honest, unless your child has severe organisational issues I’d try and stay out of their work as much as possible. They are 15-16 year olds and so whatever you say will make them want to do the opposite and they do also know themselves best

My disorganised son did his own, much more likely to stick to it that way

And yes to seneca

Some kids won’t organise themselves! then let them fail and resit if they have to. What are you going to do, hold their hand through their A-levels and degree too.?

Some kids won't organise themselves because their parents always do it for them.