Revision Support for Pupils

There is a wealth of support and guidance available to you as you begin your preparations for your GCSE examinations. Our teachers and the Academy as a whole will support you every step of the way and do as much as they can to aid you. Obviously the onus is on you, as pupils, to ensure you are fully committed to your success and are preparing in a way which allows you to reach your potential and enter your exams feeling confident.

Top Tips for Revision

Current research suggests two skills are most essential – testing yourself on your revision as you go along to reinforce and leaving enough time to distribute revision over a long enough period. Some others include:

1. Prepare – Make sure you have everything you need to revise organised beforehand. Notes, textbooks, revision guides. It is also worth making a list of the topics which you need to revise for each subject so you can tick them off as you go along – This is a nice visual reinforcement of progress! We would recommend using the checklists in the front of the revision guides.

2. Create a Revision Timetable – one which is realistic and can be kept to and achieved. This will help you understand exactly how much you need to revise and what key priorities are. It will save the last minute panic if you have paced your revision over a long time period. There are some excellent websites for this (https://getrevising.co.uk and www.revisionworld.com/gcse-revision). Make sure you include breaks in your revision.

3. Practice Papers – do as many as possible. These are a good way of ensuring you are as confident as possible with the exam paper but also that you are able to apply all of the knowledge you are revising.

4. Regular and focused revision – Ensure your revision is focused and you are not surrounded by distractions. Short, regular bursts of revision with breaks in between are more beneficial than an hour sat with a book in front of you but your phone and laptop next to you. Try the ransom technique – your parents keep your phone/another item that distracts you until you are able to show them you have revised a topic by answering questions/talking to them about it!

5. Add some variety – Try to make your revision as active and ‘exciting’ as possible. Sitting and reading notes is not normally effective for most people. There are some excellent revision games and podcasts on the internet and useful videos on YouTube.