Gcse Revision Strategies

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I'm sure I've posted before about my year 11 son. Quite bright but not massively motivated. Becoming reasonably open to guidance on how to do his work, which I think he needs.

To be honest I find it all a bit overwhelming and I really want to support him more over next few months.

I need some basic advice, e.g taking into account the fact that he still has homework, what's the best revision plan/ way to cover all 10 GCSE subjects across the week?

Best revision methods too.

Thanks for any advice.

This lady is great and the video is very useful. Hope this helps.

Excellent, thank you

What subjects OP? And which ones is he struggling the most with? There are lots of subject experts on this board.

How does he revise best? Some things my DC found helpful:
Going through a past paper verbally - maybe while on a walk or sitting in the garden - away from books
Explaining an answer to someone else (friend, parent)
Working collaboratively with a friend
Mind maps
Colour coded notes

Try breaking it down into topics and times - 30 mins on French vocab for hobbies or the theme of aggression in R&J - very specific rather than just “Eng lit today”. Then a quick test to see what’s retained.

Also lots of other good ideas on this board.

Thank you. I need to help ds2 with this.

Thanks for the suggestions @clary

Content wise he finds maths, science and French the hardest.

But the biggest challenge currently is how to fit it all In, during each week. He finds this overwhelming (and because we- his parents- have got limited time too we also find it hard) and so struggles to know where to start. He doesn't like planning either.

The main focus needs to be on doing questions. There is so much content that learning it all is probably unlikely. The same sorts of questions come up within each topic so he needs to know how to answer variations of those. Have a go at questions and learn content to be able to get those right is my advice. And prepare model answers within each topic on oral and written for the languages.

Thanks @Thethingswedoforlove
I'm not sure how to balance demands of homework and revision.
Are smaller revision chunks sensible, e.g 30 min per subject? Or longer?

I'm guessing weekdays he will have an hour of revision from now on, plus homework.

Thanks

Revision cards, make a few each week, carry them in his pocket, look at them at odd moments, bus stop, lunch queue, etc. Nothing massive, just say 4 french sentences to learn by heart and 4 scie3nce facts . That is 8 cards in a week, nothing massive, but if he learn those 8 things in a week every week, he would be making strides.

In specific revision time, yes, exam questions. Learn the topic, do exam questions, go through the markscheme and work out what mistakes you are making.

Little and often not a whole hour at once. if he is going to revise for an hour, then one subject for 30 minutes, followed by a break, followed by another subject for 30 minutes. Do not just read, that doesn't work, make notes, draw mindmaps, whatever, but not just reading

Different things work for different people. My DS could not and would not use cards. He did loads and loads of past papers - some that school gave out, then he googled and got ones going back donkeys years. MFL I tested him lots (because that’s what I know) by having conversations on the relevant topics.
we spent a Sunday drawing up a timetable because he found it overfacing trying to get his head around everything all at once. We chunked it and planned it around the exam dates.

Agree with others, active revision is best, so not just sitting reading. How does he learn best? That is the key.

Short chunks of max 30 mins a subject is good too. A lot of HW going forward at this stage of yr 11 is likely to be revision tasks or exam-style questions anyway.

I agree with learning set answers for French speaking - his teacher will be able to support with what these may be - but for the writing it's of limited use as there is no way of knowing what topics will come up (the speaking is conducted by the teacher, so they can direct it to some extent).

What board for French? Is he taking higher or foundation? That's my subject so I may be able to help with more detailed tips.

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Also agree re past papers - there are only so many on the exam board websites, but legacy ones can be found, and for a lot of subjects that's fine (as long as he bears in mind that the format will be different). For topic-based subjects, legacy papers may not be ideal; but a French reading comp is a French reading comp and will be good practice.

He needs to prioritise.

Firstly, which ones does he need to get into the college game wants to go to?

For those ones that he needs, focus on is he already in track? So if for example he needs to pass maths but wants to study languages and he is on track to pass maths then don't focus on maths.

Make a hit list of the top three. Do those regularly.

Actual best revision techniques vary by subject. For maths doing questions works well, languages likewise. Both have free websites he can use.

Have you heard of the pomodoro method? It's useful for the overwhelmed.

Then I'd write down one useful task for each subject each week (maybe colour code - get some post its).

So French: learn and test myself on vocab for "going on a holiday".

Science: watch BBC Bitesize video in convection and do a practice question".

Etc.

I reckon if you explore their homework system/revision guides/BBC Bitesize/Seneca you'll find plenty.

Make a list of what boards he's doing first.

Is homework still on new stuff? If not then homework counts as revision too.

Place marking for tips!

My daughter's favourite revision method was blurting.

You pick a sub topic and (without looking at notes at all) write down as many points as you can remember on a whiteboard.

Then cross reference those points to textbooks. The missing ones are the one to focus on revising next.

She also did 5 minutes science videos on you tube.

Basically the key is not just to read but do active revision, lots of flash cards as well.

Hi everyone, apologies for disappearing- I had a job interview yesterday so spent my free time preparing without looking at mumsnet.

I really appreciate these tips.

@clary thanks, it's AQA french. Currently higher but almost certainly he'll go to foundation. This is probably his worst subject and I'm accepting he may not pass- probably due to years 7 and 8 being covid, he has huge gaps

@Fluffycloudsfloatinginthesky I think blurting sounds really helpful for him, thanks

@Octavia64 unfortunately he doesn't know what he wants to do, if he fis I think he'd have more motivation. Recommendations of any websites would be great thanks

Thanks again all

Ok, so you have said maths science and French.

All of these have good revision resources.
Little and often is better than large blocks.

So for maths:

Do 5 questions each day from corbettmaths.com/5-a-day/gcse/

He has higher/foundation etc. get your son to find the level he wants. They have answers. If there is a topic he doesn't know then use the videos to learn it.

corbettmaths.com/5-a-day/gcse/

Science:
If you can buy tassomai for him. It has an app he can download on his phone and he can do questions on his phone. Again. Aim for five a day. If he doesn't know the answer use the videos to help.

French:
Try Seneca learning French. They have the AQA course. It used to be free not sure if it still is.

Thanks @Octavia64 I've not heard of these, so I'll look them up tmw.

'Free science lessons' videos are great. I also subscribed to 'My GCSE science' for my ds, although ds tended to flick screen and game with longer videos- but I thought they were good 😁. Tassomai did not work for my son- he hated it. He still got 8/9s for separate sciences and I think the key was his understanding.
Maths grade is similarly determined by understanding topics again, so identifying anything he doesn't and getting help going back over it. He definitely needs him to be doing questions little and often. For science/maths get him to go through the specification and colour red/amber/green to identify where he should focus .

I'm not convinced about the usefulness of creating revision resources/cards, as it can be wasteful of time. More revising to match the questions that come up and getting it in your memory in a way that works for you. Ds quite liked a A3 sheet and having a summary of a topic by writing mind map style to connect ideas. They weren't pretty or neat but they helped absorption. You could help him by looking at past papers and identifying the sort of questions/frequency of topics that come up and match his revision to this. Talking about something he has just revised definitely helps retention.

Try Pomodoro technique and the Forest app.

Past papers, past papers and more past papers. To time.

Thanks both.

@Geppili what's the forest app?

Forest - if distraction is an issue. Pomodoro technique is for focus as well.

Thanks @LittleRedintheHood