Plan ahead, use revision notes, do past GCSE/A-Level papers, have a revision buddy – great advice but which child does it? Click here to check out my son’s GCSE story.
I perfected a 7 -step process which I guarantee, if done patiently and diligently your child will achieve the very best they can, possibly 2-3 grades higher !
- Download three to five years of exam papers along with their marking schemes, grade bands, and any other supporting material. I’ve shared links to these for both GCSEs and A-Levels- check them by clicking here.
- Do one set of exams and mark them using the marking scheme – it’s OK to get very low marks – YOU WILL IMPROVE – make a note of the subject, date, time started, time finished, mark as a percentage, and an actual grade! Check out an example – click here.
- Next use the published curriculum to write down all the topic headings you need to cover – you’ll have to check your text book and / or the exam board website (CIE, Edxcel, etc..). Check out an example – click here.
- Use your text books, or find a website, which covers the relevant topics and provides exercises – make sure you do the excercises however tedious. Write a maximum of one A4 page of notes per topic – revision notes are about revising not learning ! Check out the following page on how to learn new material – click here.
- Do a another set of exam papers and mark them using the marking scheme. Make a note of the same information as mentioned in 2) above. You should hopefully see some improvement in your marks and note the change down – click here.
- Now here’s the secret – review the questions you got wrong and write down the topics they are related to – this is the gap analysis.
- Review the topics noted on the gap analysis and create a supplementary sheet to review from. Start again from step 4.
The steps 4-7 should repeat until you are getting satisfactory marks. Rotate between subjects – your child may have hit a plateau and need to return to the subject after a break- so don’t push one subject only.
The above is hard work ! Your child should be already doing it but how likely is that? Having the time and an education background helped – ;
- Is you child too lazy to organize themselves?
- Do they say they’re too busy to do this?
- Are you too busy at work to be able to mark, schedule, and chase up?
- Are you working in a different industry to teaching?
- Are you smart and have the ability to learn anything but not the time?
- Do you need someone else to put the process above in place?
Click here to have above process managed for you and make sure your child is fulfilling their potential. Your child will only be doing his or her GCSEs once in Year 11 – don’t waste this opportunity.
