Tear 11 - Revision schedule for mocks

[CiaraLiara]

Hi everyone. I am from a non English speaking country and wasn't educated in the UK, so I often don't feel I know enough to advise/challenge my daughter, so looking for some advice.

My DD is 15YO and in Y11. She is smart but she's not confident and doesn't love academic work. She struggles with the sciences and maths, and hates them, but she also struggles and hates english. She is also on a waiting list to be assessed for inattentive adhd. She has her GCSE mocks coming up right after Christmas, so we won't be going away or having any visitors this time around.

I just wanted to check with you what seems reasonable in terms of a revision schedule. I do appreciate that this is very different for every student, but I just want to have some sort of idea in my head when I have this discussion with DD, as I don't want to end up pushing her beyond what's reasonable, but I also need to keep an eye on things and provide support. Should her revision start now with say 1 hr a day, or in december with 2 hours a day, then during the two weeks holiday, revision every other day?

I guess I just need some ideas/examples. Thank you!!

My DD1 did GCSEs in 2015, just before the recent reforms.
She didn't have bandwidth for revision in the autumn term because she was busy prepping for the controlled assessments they did then.

Over the Christmas holidays, in preparation for January mocks she did ~4.5 hours every day, with a solid 5 days off over Christmas.

The 4.5 hrs was done as ~3x1hr in the morning (with some short breaks) part way and at the end of each session, then all afternoon off and 3 x 30mins in the late afternoon.

However I did a lot of the revision with her 1-1 as her mind wandered. The revision guides for science are particularly good.

For each session we picked a clear topic to do, so not 'science' but 'chemistry - soluble salts rules' or 'RE - religion & war'.

The more she can manage for mocks, the easier the real things will be.

I also broadly think that 3hrs daily is better than attempting 6hrs on alternate days.

By the way it is a real pain re-sitting maths & English when at college so really worth putting effort in now.

If you think she has ADHD then try to avoid just send her to her room to 'revise'.

Interactive methods will help, so online things like Seneca or MyMaths, doing past papers, you testing her, her reading then trying to write down things will all help a lot. Even throwing a beanbag backwards and forwards whilst listing thing.