Help with revision plan from now until GCSEs please

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DD has just done her mocks and was disappointed with her results. She left it too late to start revising and then was overwhelmed with how much she had to learn. She also spent a lot of time on certain subjects to the detriment of others. She’s not the type who can cram, she has to go over things again and again before she can remember/grasp a topic.

She’s agreed that it’s been a good lesson and she needs to start really knuckling down now to improve her grades for the actual exams.

What’s the best way to go about this? Could you suggest a structured revision timetable that will take her from now until exams that is sustainable. Thanks in anticipation.

Hi, I'm a Psychology teacher at a secondary school.
I would suggest that your daughter starts by committing to a set amount of revision time a week, e.g make it part of her routine to revise 4pm-6pm 3 days a week or whatever would work for you.
Once you've done that, write down all the modules/topics she has for each subject and allocate time to revise each one leading from now up until the exam. It's still early so revision time could also include homework for now, or start with less time and increase as the exams get closer.

I would advise that your daughter speaks to her teachers too about what she needs to focus on as each subject I'd different.

Hope this helps!

This is what I would do:

Split into phases between now & exams

e.g.
Phase 1 Christmas holidays - before Feb half term
Phase 2 Feb half term- end Spring term
Phase 3 Easter holidays - week before exams start
Phase 4 Exams - half term
Phase 5 half term - end

Set goals for each phase. e.g.
Phase 1 Subjects she 'missed' for mocks, plus any misunderstandings shown in mocks
Phase 2 All content not covered by mocks revision
Phase 3 Focused re-revision & practice papers
Phase 4 Exams pre- half term
Phase 5 Exams after half term

Then within the phases set goals per subject, estimate time and just do it.
Make sure the household supports this over holidays / weekends by helping her block out time / arranging socialising around revision.
Mini rewards for work well done.
You test her where needed.

If she has the tendency to overfocus in on some things and miss others, I'd suggest it's really important to make the revision timetable fairly specific i.e. not just "revise Physics" but "revise electromagnetism".

My children tried to do things in cycles - so the first cycle round was just making sure they understood the material, then doing some topic based questions, then doing some more mixed questions etc.

using revision guides or something like Seneca as a framework (not the be all and end all) can be helpful.

Think about how she learns effectively - for example, my DS found 25 minutes work then a 5 minutes break and then doing something different, more effective than long periods of time working on the same subject. My DD was the opposite! Also - what helps her to learn? Practice questions will be important, but does she find mindmaps, flashcards, more interactive learning, talking things through most helpful? 30 minutes of productive revision is more useful than 3 hours of creating notes "just because".

This is just the type of advice I needed thank you so much for taking the time. Do you think she should start off doing a subject per night so for example: Monday- geography, Tuesday- maths, Wednesday - physics etc.?

Was going to get her to look at the specifications for each subject and start at the beginning.

@sheepdogdelight i like the cycle idea.

You could do that or have it more fluid so she can fit homework in too.
If you plan the time, e.g 2 hours at night, she can then look at any homework she has and then pick something from her revision list to do in that time.
It's all about finding what works for her, and luckily it's early enough in the year to experiment and figure it out

I wouldn't spend 2 hrs doing geography in 1 night.

I'd probably go for 4 x 30 mins and do e.g.

• geography - glaciers
• physics - formation of stars
• french - irregular verbs
• maths - circle theorems

I agree with Teen - I think completely different topics should be preferred in a single evening. Unless your DC is very focussed and of the mentality to churn through a subject in one sitting.

The other benefit of the different topics method is that it breaks up the subjects you like and don't like. Most DC are going to find 2 hours revision of <most hated subject> hard going, but hopefully more palatable if it's sandwiched between subjects they like better.

Brilliant that definitely makes sense. Thank you so much, it’s feeling much achievable now.

Does her school offer any support in this area? My child is year 11 too. Since early year 10 her school have taught revision techniques. They've taught many different ones but iv only paid attention to the flash cards and Pomodoro technique.

I'd approach the school and ask them for help on various ways a child can revise.

@Dacadactyl I think they have gone over making mind maps, flash cards etc. I find though that DD will spend ages making a beautiful mind map or writing flash cards and then not know anything on them when I come to test her🙄

Just googled the pomodoro technique and it sounds like something that would work for dd thank you.

I've recently discovered 'Knowledge organisers' I'm finding them useful for study as well as revision.

You basically have everything relevant to the topic on 1 A4 sheet of paper.

So if she is taking GCSE History she can have key dates, a timeline of monarchs, a time line of prime ministers, List of major events.

For GCSE science she might have formulas and definitions and a stepped approach to answering a question.

I find creating them means I need to understand the concept and then you have everything there in one small space.

She could create one a day for different subjects, start with something she finds easy, Once you have created them you can review them every day alongside different in depth reading.

In the past I have found it useful to work through past papers with 'open books' until you ge tot eh stage you can answer the paper without referring to the book.

It's better to do 20 mins a day than 2 hours in a block on a weekend.

Below one of my KOs

I've just given my year 11 their suggested revision plan. It has 4 activities per week, each between 15 and 45 minutes, with each week covering 4 different parts of my course.
I'm not checking it or marking it and I've told them it's up to them to decide what's important to them - but each task stands alone.
I don't recommend more than 45 minutes on a subject at a time.

Do you have the actual test papers? We found that there is a big difference between the issues where DD should have known something and made silly mistakes or where she geniune didn't understand the questions.

For the first bit - re-check how she revises. DD didn't do flash cards at all, they don't work for her. She works a lot better re-reading exercise books, marking sections, doing test papers or questions in workbooks. She works better in a larger concept of topic then trying to figure out flash card points. Her flash cards were either the same size of a workbook or pointless summaries of something she wrote down because she couldn't distinguish between what was important and what wasn't. Just a waste of time.

For sections she struggled with the concept, she went back to the basics. The school had some websites where they had videos explaining concepts but tbh, the best was paying for a tutor. Saying that, DD losts time at school do to an illness and just didn't manage to catch up on her own.

Together we sat up a timetable per term. For each day we checked what she had on clubs and how much time she had for school work. Ideally she had around 45-90 minutes (incl. homework) and we decided on one subject per day, more during holidays and before mocks she also didn't go to her clubs. Most of them were understanding of mocks/exams and never made a fuss.

With that she knew exactly what to study and what her time frame was.