How to revise?

First of all, as I am where you are, I have a little technique that is helping me do well. 1) Buy the revision books that come with the EXAM WORKBOOK PRACTICE. 2) First complete the revision book, ALL OF IT.3)Then complete the workbook and see if you can recall the information and apply it to the question. 4)Whilst you revise, keep it chill and calm. Eat a packet of crisps why don't you?5)Do AS MUCH revision as you can until you can't be bothered.6)Keep technology away from you unless you need it. SERIOUSLY. 7)If you are in your final year, do the revision until you are sure you got it and understand. Don't watch movies etc. or else you may forget the things you revised. 8)It helps if you have a timetable without the times. Do it whenever you want to, but make sure you complete it. If not, catch up. That's pretty much what I follow. Don't stress and good luck!

Go through your notes and write concise notes from them. If there is anything you don’t understand from your notes , ask a teacher or go through the textbook. Don’t do exam papers until the run up the exam but do lots of practise questions. Figure out how mark schemes work because, in the end, exams are all about can you write what the mark scheme wants instead of showing that you know stuff,

At GCSE, I didn't really do any work honestly. I am lucky in that I'm pretty good at passing exams, and I managed to get 8A*s and also 3 A-B grades.

However, I had to work incredibly hard last year (AS/year 12) to not only get my understanding and recall in place, but also to actually learn HOW to revise, as I had never developed those skills at GCSE.

Using the following techniques I managed to get AAA (and a D, but we don't talk about that...) last year.

1). Past papers. Past papers & practice questions are probably the best thing you can do to prepare for your exams, although you shouldn't attempt full past papers or even topic questions until you've covered the topic in full in class and revisited it briefly, by which I mean...
2). Revising throughout the year. I do NOT mean doing 4 hours of remaking your notes a night starting from September of year 10; this will not help, and will just burn you out before your exams. However, every half term - or even every week/fortnight/month if you're an organised person - you should try to produce just 1 or 2 pages of summary notes for each of your TOPICS - not whole subjects - up to that point. If you've found certain topics really hard, do those in more detail. Then, once you've finished your notes on a topic, do 2-5 past paper questions on it, depending on how much practice you need.
3). Pace yourself. Again, there's no point doing as many hours of revision as you're physically capable starting tomorrow - you'll just burn out. It's much better to start doing a couple of hours a week until, for example, January, then maybe half an hour a night around the time of your mocks, and then in the 3-6 months immediately before your exams, stepping up to 2 or so hours a night. Don't overdo it - if you have a night of sports or something, don't try to cram 4 hours in the next day - spread it more evenly.
4). Use a revision timetable. Websites like GetRevising will, for free, structure a revision timetable for you. It will also schedule more hours of revision the closer you get to your exams, meaning you don't go all-out to early on. Generally, about 10-20 hours per subject, spread over the 6 months before your exams, will be more than sufficient - so timetable about this amount. If you find a subject easy, great, only do 5 hours - about 1 per month. Not so easy? Do 25 or 30, if you can.
5). Remember self care is as important for success as revisipn. Don't quit things you enjoy or sacrifice sleeping or seeing friends in order to revise. Someone invites you to a party or on holiday with them? Go, if it's within reason! Missing one or two weekends of revision won't mean you fail your exams; likewise, if you need a few days off just to regroup yourself, that's absolutely fine. Sports, theatre and similar activities can all help you cope with stress, and socialising, drinking and eating well, as well as having good sleeping habits, will give your brain the best chance of actually taking in what you're doing in class & for revision.
6). Use techniques that suit you. Just because everyone else loves Mindmaps, doesn't mean you have to. If you prefer posters, Flashcards or even just solid past paper work, use that! Especially towards the end of y11 when you may get revision lessons in school - if a teacher asks you to make notes, but you'd rather do the past paper that's in your bag, ask them - most will allow it.
7). Ask for help if you need it. Whether that's asking your school with revision techniques, or asking your family to help you get into good eating habits, or even just asking a teacher if you can go over a topic you're unsure of, you should ask for the help you need. It's okay to not understand a topic or be struggling with stress or anxiety - don't try and deal with it yourself because it will only get worse over time, and then explode dramatically the week before your first exam (I've been there, trust me 😂).

Best of luck!!!!

For me personally, a revision timetable was the first step. I made sure I allocated time for core subjects each night and one of my options. I felt starting really early gave me a good advantage and if you can get ahead of class then use lessons as revision! (this is really good esp as you are aiming high!)

In terms of how to revise, i could not recommend Mr Salles Teaches English more. (I struggled with my English and ended up with 2 nines all thanks to this!) For maths I recommend Corbett 5 a day, you can choose which level you want and these are really helpful challenging exam questions. Also flashcards are useful, I used them on the way to and from school.

Hope that helps a little! Good luck

I would recommend using mathswatch for maths gcse as it covers the 9-1 grading system and for English language and literature i would suggest using mr bruff as he got me a 5/C in English Lang.

Website blocker apps are really useful if you get distracted easily on your computer! I tried to link to a website that lists a few, but it got blocked by moderators... If you google them you should be able to find decent free ones though! You'll be able to block youtube and other websites for a certain amount of time so you can't get sidetracked

First you'll want to figure out your learning style. I'm a visual learner so I tend to colour code my work, especially mind maps.

Thanks! This is really helpful!

Do you know where i could find lots of practice exam papers for the new 9-1 GCSEs?

You should consider yourself lucky...
I'm expected to get 8s and 9s 😥

I find it really helpful to teach or go over with someone what I've learnt in school that day (or week, but day is easier). I also find it helpful to stick postit notes around my house where I look the most, with information, that I can't get round my head, written on them. I also like to use websites like Quizlet and GoConqr to make revision resources (because I'm not very artistic and it's just more practical for me).

One thing my head of year has been telling everyone to do is make revision notes/ resources after each lesson/ school day/ end of topic/ half term on what we have learnt so that revision comes easy during our exam periods.

Hooe this helps

Coming from someone who already has their GCSEs, flashcards were so helpful for all of the sciences, business and history, I watched a lot of videos for history. For maths and further maths I just done a lot of past papers and watched videos too. French was just constant practice.

I did IGCSE so I don’t know what the new GCSEs are like but I’d say go to the exam board website, they may have some specimen papers. Other than that, I have no idea. Sorry

A great method to use is to do plenty of past papers for subjects such as science. Also try to make a revision timetable and try to stick to it. However it is important to not over revise as that can sometimes be worse for your grades. My friend summarises her revision guides onto post it notes and that really helps her. Flash cards work well for me

Ok! I also do history so i'll try some videos!

make short notes too while watching!