Tips for Yr 11

I did well in my GCSEs and my biggest tip is make a revision timetable, ideally from the first week in september and stick with it - if it's too much and you're not getting it done and thinking you might burn out, reduce the number of hours, 9 months of weekly revision will amount to a lot.

Secondly, find revision methods that work for you, personally I found flashcards super useful (but just make sure you review them) and I really loved the anki app for them

In terms of summer revision, I personally would say it really isn't necessary, even for top grades but if you really want to do some, I'd say just have a look over and refresh your knowledge of topics you're weaker on but most importantly make sure you have a break and feel well rested and prepared for the year - I know a lot of schools have lots of assessments and the beginning of Y11 so you'll get an opportunity to do some revision then (but don't worry if you do poorly, you have a couple of weeks to revise for 8-12 assessments, most, most people do SIGNIFICANTLY better in their actual exams)

For past paper, I personally would save them until the exam period and April, just because at that point you hopefully should have revised everything and the papers will be most useful to you, and for your mocks to simulate the real exams as much as possible you won't want to have seen the questions (which will be past paper questions) before - you'll thank yourself for this in May

For English (and any subject) it absolutely is possible to move up 2+ grades - I got a 5 in my November English lang mock but a 9 in the real thing - all I did was practice one past paper under exam conditions, make sure I knew how much time to spend on each question and look at the examiners report for the past paper I did.

Try build up on your revision throughout the year rather than leave it to exam season, that way you are able to take your time with revising and won't be too overwhelmed when you have your GCSEs. Allocate revision time depending on what exams are sooner and what subjects you struggle with, so most of your revision time would probably go to English. For English (and every essay based subject) it's a good idea to do practice questions in your own time and ask your teacher to go through it with you whenever they are free, this way they can give you in depth advice in person so you can ask for them to clarify or elaborate on anything you are unsure about, or ask them to go through a sample essay so you can see what aspects of the sample lead to good marks. Also, personally, I was terrible at memorising direct quotes in English so I relied a lot on themes and context instead, and was still able to get a 7. You have a lot of time, so I'm sure you'll be able to boost your grade.

Essay plans do you recommend for English then especially lit? Thank you xx

Yes! Or perhaps even mindmap all of the context, themes and characters and see what aspects link together or contrast each other, and then using those mindmaps to write practice essays using past exam questions.

Wokay anything else I'm trying to get everything I can! I find English rlly hard as its my second language 😅

A lot of people have recommended anki is it better than Quizlet and what is it exactly? Thanks for the advice😊

Anki is just another flashcard app the thing that differentiates anki from others (quizlet, memrise ect) is that anki will 'keep track' of how often you get each flashcard right / wrong and how you found it (again, hard, ok, easy) and then use that to decide when to show you that flashcard again - so a flashcard you consistently get wrong you will see pretty much every day whereas a flashcard you always get right you might go months without seeing

I personally much prefer anki and found it useful at GCSE (even though I only started using it in Feb of Y11) but I preferred other apps (memrise and quizlet) for flashcard sets other people had made

Finding online resources is a good idea too. There are a lot of websites and videos you will probably be able to find relating to the texts you are studying in English, I found videos were particularly helpful for when I was feeling a little lazy to do much studying on my own. Also reading anything you'd like in your own time is a good way of improving your own English as well as being able to steal good metaphors or quotes from to put in your own writing. My English tutor also made me find poems online so I could practice my analysis and evaluating skills, but maybe you can ask your teacher to provide you with some since it can sometimes be hard to find a good quality poem to practice with. Overall, as long as you put the time and effort in to improve your work, it will pay off once exams come around, but good luck, I'm sure you'll do well!

Anki > Quizlet - you can import Quizlet sets to Anki if needs be. https://www.medschoolgurus.com/post/want-to-import-quizlet-decks-into-anki-here-s-how (how to import)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3t1KZjPleM (a simple retrospective revision timetable)

Anki is just another flashcard app the thing that differentiates anki from others (quizlet, memrise ect) is that anki will 'keep track' of how often you get each flashcard right / wrong and how you found it (again, hard, ok, easy) and then use that to decide when to show you that flashcard again - so a flashcard you consistently get wrong you will see pretty much every day whereas a flashcard you always get right you might go months without seeing

I personally much prefer anki and found it useful at GCSE (even though I only started using it in Feb of Y11) but I preferred other apps (memrise and quizlet) for flashcard sets other people had made

I did well in my GCSEs and my biggest tip is make a revision timetable, ideally from the first week in september and stick with it - if it's too much and you're not getting it done and thinking you might burn out, reduce the number of hours, 9 months of weekly revision will amount to a lot.

Secondly, find revision methods that work for you, personally I found flashcards super useful (but just make sure you review them) and I really loved the anki app for them

In terms of summer revision, I personally would say it really isn't necessary, even for top grades but if you really want to do some, I'd say just have a look over and refresh your knowledge of topics you're weaker on but most importantly make sure you have a break and feel well rested and prepared for the year - I know a lot of schools have lots of assessments and the beginning of Y11 so you'll get an opportunity to do some revision then (but don't worry if you do poorly, you have a couple of weeks to revise for 8-12 assessments, most, most people do SIGNIFICANTLY better in their actual exams)

For past paper, I personally would save them until the exam period and April, just because at that point you hopefully should have revised everything and the papers will be most useful to you, and for your mocks to simulate the real exams as much as possible you won't want to have seen the questions (which will be past paper questions) before - you'll thank yourself for this in May

For English (and any subject) it absolutely is possible to move up 2+ grades - I got a 5 in my November English lang mock but a 9 in the real thing - all I did was practice one past paper under exam conditions, make sure I knew how much time to spend on each question and look at the examiners report for the past paper I did.