How should you revise?
There are 17 weeks to go until the GCSE exams start. Revision will be starting soon, does your child know not only how to revise, but how and what they should be revising? What can you do to help them? Liz, explains some of her top tips.
Only revise what they need to revise
It’s a human tendency to want to do the things you can do already first. Therefore young people may start revising with things that they can do already, or focusing on a subject that they enjoy. This is not an effective use of time, and you want to get your child to use the 80/20 rule. 80% of their time should be focused on what they don’t want to do but will have the most impact.
As a parent, if it looks like your child is only going over what they know already, or their favourite subject, then I suggest that there is anxiety and fear that is stopping them. You need to gently encourage and help them, encourage a growth mindset and use rewards and praise to move them into working on the things they find tough.
If they are doing exam papers that get progressively harder, get them to work from the back or half way through.
Find their weaknesses and fill in the gaps
I know I harp on about ‘the wall’ a lot, but knowing what the learning builds from and working on weaknesses is such an effective way of improving. There are different ways of doing this, and here are a few ways you can do this with your child:
- Get a revision guide, or other maths book (if you don’t know which one then get my handy guide to maths books which will help you find one which books would suit your children first) and get them to highlight the areas they don’t know and focus on learning those.
- Each time they have to look something up write a list and go over the list regularly
- For maths you can buy them my 12 week Fill the Gaps Tutoring Package which goes over what they should know and then I work with your child on filling those gaps. It’s great if your child is in years 9 and 10, but also is good for those who are in year 11, and will do exam papers in school. Otherwise for year 11, I recommend my 12 weeks to GCSE Success Tutoring Package which uses exam papers and time with me to build their confidence ready for exam success.
I have 4 Saturday spaces for tutoring, and they will soon fill up, so don’t hesitate to book a free call with me to find out more.
Use what works best for your child
We are all different, and work in different ways. Your child might work in a very different way to their siblings or friends and might think that this isn’t okay. Make sure that they understand that they need to work in the way that is
- Know your child’s learning styles, you can get my FREE VARK questionnaire e-book to find out what your child’s learning styles are and encourage them to work with methods that work for them
- Think about their environment and how that affects their learning. Are there ways that you can structure things at home to help them.
- Ask them what they prefer and what would help! They may not know, but open up the conversation and see what ideas you can come up with that works for them
Work Little and Often
Having a lot to do can be daunting, and your child is still at school, completing their homework and studying. That’s why I suggest starting now and working in small steps and slowly building it up. Ten minutes a day of revision is 20 hours of revision before the exam, that’s really worth it. In that time they could be doing a few questions, adding words to a vocab list, or testing themselves with flashcards.
Vary your resources
Using the same resources over and over gets boring. Has your child got plenty of different resources that they can use? Mix it up – use songs, videos, exam papers. There are so many resources out there, it can be hard to decide what to use, and that’s why I wrote my guide to websites and apps, and I’ll be sharing some of my favourite resources in Education Support 4 Parents for you.
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Revision can be a hard thing to start, but by using these tips your child can get a step ahead and make sure that they are using the next 17 weeks wisely. If they need some structured maths revision then remember I’ve only got 4 spaces left on my 12 Weeks to GCSE Success Exam Preparation Tutoring Package.