GCSE history revision - anyone else struggling?

[Alsoplayspiccolo]

DD has mocks in January.
She's taking Eduqas history and the sheer volume of content is overwhelming.
Her class has just finished Britain: empire, reform and war, and still has a whole other component to study.

To make matters worse, she has poor working memory, so learning a million dates and events is agonising.

Any suggestions on how she can help herself?
I don't know whether to suggest aiming for a general overview, or whether she needs to know everything in minute detail.

No answers here but we’re having similar struggles and the history mock is tomorrow. Still one unit to go (a huge chunk of Chinese history - about 100 years?!) which won’t be started til after Christmas. Dd says history feels like 2 GCSEs.

It’s her best subject too, she often gets fiull marks in practice essays but actually learning the content is really stressing her out. It seems impossible to get revision books too as there are so many different permutations of the course. Any tips from last year’s parents would be welcome!

Relieved and sorry that you're feeling the same way, crazy.
We're having the same issue with books and revision resources. DD says her teacher told them there isn't one for the Britain bit. 🤔 She's trying to revise from a couple of booklets the school has handed out, but one is in massive detail and the other is shorthand and only really useful as prompt.
They only finished this component last week and are being tested this week; the teacher told us that he had had to teach 3 lessons in one just to get through it on time (no wonder DD is struggling, as she also has processing issues).

She was hoping to do history A level but the last year has killed her love of it and it just feels like a marathon exercise in memory.

Snap, history was one of her definites for A Level (and dh and I are both history graduates!) but she’s now starting to question it.

On a separate note, does anyone know whether the A Level is as bad as the GCSE in terms of content/memory work?

DD’s teacher has given them masses of information - two huge bulging folders so far - and she’s struggling to identify the key points.

Ds1 did AQA and had both November and February mocks where he got a 6 both times. But by the time the real thing rolled round he got a 9. What helped was flash cards and having May half term for History revision.

Look at past paper questions and see what format everything is in. There must be source questions, you can quote from the source to make your point, but you need to look at who wrote it, who was it intended for so where is their bias?

Some questions for Ds were How far do you agree that...." you need to find out what the structure of the response is, Ds1 had 18 mark questions for this, he would either do 2/2 or 3/1 (argue yes I agree, no I disagree) plus a clinching argument that he hasn't put in his 2/2 or 3/1.

As she is struggling ask school to provide a WAGOLL (What a good one looks like) they may also have scripts from previous students exams and you can see on there where they were awarded marks.

Ds found that overall knowledge with key dates to back it up was good, the main thing was second order concepts so what stayed the same, what changed, what was the consequence of X. ie

people drinking gin in 18th Century
consequence - death, babies born malformed, crime increased
-led (eventually) to Gov law to tax maker & seller
-Not effective due to sheer number of establishments
-So Gov increased taxes - led to home brewing - so not effective

Does that help at all?

Would quizlet.com/en-gb help with learning the dates?
DS who has apoor memory finding it useful for French Vocabulary - he's made his own lists.

seneca - might be useful - we're not using it for history but it's been good for other subjects.
www.senecalearning.com/blog/gcse-history-revision-guide/

Agree - History is DS1's strongest subject, but he had a wobble before his first of mocks about the sheer volume of content. And he has a good memory.

He's currently mapping it out, and just about to start on flashcards this weekend. I'm just glad he had early mocks, as it's given him time to sort it out.

Melissa, thanks for your help. DD's issue isn't how to answer questions or format, but how to remember all the info needed to answer the questions.
She does really well in class and homework but less well in exams, simply because of the quantity of info needed to be memorised.

Unfortunately, Seneca doesn't offer her board, seemingly, but Quizlet is a great idea for key dates, thanks.

(Recently) ex-history teacher here! The new Gcse content load is humongous, I agree.
Here are some things I used to advise my students:

Watch documentaries on YouTube/wherever you can find them. You can do this as a family, ideally. Check they're legit first but there's lots out there made by reputable TV companies. Discuss it afterwards and talk about what fitted with what you already know. What was extra and what was superfluous to the syllabus!

Create date maps. Like a flow diagram with explanations of how they connect. This is especially useful for essay planning.

Take past questions and plan out what facts you might include. This can be spider diagrams etc.

Quick quizzes on key dates over and over and over and over and over again.

Change the password of your phone/ significant account to a date you always forget and take off automatic login.

Hope that helps!

That is really helpful, thanks, Gertrude!
I'm reassured by your post that we're on the right track, regarding watching YouTube documentaries; I've watched some with her on the Boer War this week, and previously on the USA stuff. She does much better with visual learning, actually, and it doesn't feel as much of a slog as sitting over a text book.
With the Britain stuff this week, it struck me how much follows on as a direct consequence and the past papers we've looked at ask you to connect 2 of 4 things, eg the Taff Vale case and the Labour party, so the flow chart idea is great.

Thanks!

Quizlet is an amazing webpage. All of my children who took it made their own flashcards on the website, then spend small amount of time going through them each night. Likewise you could use the cards already made on the site.

Helping DD with history we used memory walks- so you imagine a pathway through a very familiar setting- we used the school. Put key dates in some sort of silly form along the route. Apologies if any of this is wrong as we did it last year but - as far as I remember over the reception desk was a big clock with 18.30 on it and someone is hauling out Native Americans and throwing them over the desk- ( Indian removal act) . Next put your head into the main hall and there’s ‘something unspeakable’ going on there with 4 people (1934 trade and intercourse act) , try to go to the stairs but the Mormon migration is coming down stopping you moving up etc etc. There was a Mexican party in the library for reasons that nieces did me and a gold rush in the maths corridor We got all the way to fort Laramie treaty in one of the maths rooms. Then you walk the path over in your head until you can easily retrieve the dates and main events .

For reasons that escape me! Not nieces

There are also tricks to remembering numbers if you are good at imaging - (and most people are, ) . You learn a simple set of images eg one - bun, two - shoe, three - bee etc and then associate that image ( or images ) with the event you are trying to remember to get you to the date. Off the top of my head gold rush 1839- if 9 = sign, put a gold sign on your memory walk, which might be enough to get you to eighteen thirty .....nine . It’s all about hooks and reducing the workload for your memory.

I teach science we have also become an exercise in memory - which is of course one way of testing people , but I’m not convinced it’s the key too success in later life!

Tony Buzan’s books are excellent for learning memory systems. (Not the mind map ones).

To

I use Eduqas for a different subject and they always have really good resources on their website which are open access. Worth a look.

Just to be pedantic, my understanding is that learning dates etc is not working memory. The subject WM affects most is maths. It affects remembering how to do things. The not remembering dates things is a LTM flaw and , happily, is easier to work on than WM. Sorry, brain nerd! Tips above are good.

Piggy, my mistake. I don't fully understand DD's processing issues. I know (from assessments) she can't recall a 4 digit number when told it verbally, can't hold information in her head whilst doing something else ( for eg can't write and listen at the same time), can't manipulate info ( eg mental arithmetic); she has executive function issues and poor WM is how it's been summarised.

Whatever it is, she has to over-learn everything...which is exhausting when it comes to history. ☹️

Yes, the holding info in head whilst doing something else might be a WM issue.

Some of the advice above isn't actually very good for people with WM problems : eg remembering how you do something and going through routines may not be great for people with WM issues.