Any GCSE English teachers could you give DD revision advice?

[puliaismine]

DD has been working hard revising sciences, geography etc but not much in the way of English’s. I don’t think she knows what to do really and I have no idea. Could anyone give her some pointers please. She’s doing Edexcel.

Not an English teacher!

English Lang - make sure she knows the timings and what is required for each question.

English Lit - themes and characters with quotes, meaning of poems and how to compare them

Have you bought a revision guide? CGL do a good make sure you get the right exam board. It is also linked to online learning and videos and takes you through exactly what you need to know for the exam. You can also revision guides for the poems and books.

Exactly this. Make sure she knows exactly what the mark schemes for each question require - the questions don't always make it clear.

Not an English Teacher...for Language last year DD was advised to have a broad idea of what creative writing piece she wanted to do (for her it was a ghostly story, abandoned building thing as she worked out it was the easiest way to use all the creative writing list of tools), the different exam marking ideas to bring into it..so understanding the mark scheme/what the "ideal looks like". And then told just to link whatever image/prompt they were given in the exam to her preplanned story.

So given a sunny beach scene....you refer to the trees on the cliff...faint path...through to the haunted house. Pretty much within a paragraph you are at your preplanned story.

She got an 8......

Literature....learn your key quotes. Then a bit like the lang...have your key quotes to pop in...make sure they are linked...= marks.
She got a 9

It was a "how to pass the exam" approach, rather than a love of literature (makes me sad)....but it is an approach...

There is little more depressing than marking a bunch of almost identical stories...

(I wondered about the pre-planned story idea for DD, but I think she'd struggle to adapt it on the fly to the given picture? Anyway she's not re-sitting this summer and college have changed boards too so I've somewhat given up.)

These are really helpfulfor English lit.

With English language it's all about sticking to the brief. The writing task doesn't have to be a literary masterpiece but it does have to show that you understand the format of whatever you're asked to do (speech, website content, newspaper article or whatever) and it needs to demonstrate that you understand how to use grammatical and language devices. Planning is key!

Better, in my opinion, to have a selection of favoured techniques to incorporate

Are school not supporting her? DD’s teachers are giving her lots of advice and after school sessions etc - could your DD ask her teacher?