17 March 2025

Dear Parents/Carers 

Preparation for Exams

As we approach our final GCSE exams in May, we often get asked “How do I revise?”. 

Revision can be a tricky thing to master.  I’m sure many of you are having discussions about revision at home at the moment, but many students, and indeed parents, don’t know the most effective ways to revise for exams.

Educational Scientists have studied this and have found the six most effective study strategies are: Spaced Practice, Interleaving, Concrete Examples, Dual Coding, Retrieval Practice and Elaboration.

• Spaced practice stresses the importance of spacing out your revision activities.
• Interleaving means breaking your study up into different sections and revising different topics in different orders, so that your brain is “kept on its toes” and doesn’t become fatigued with one topic.
• Creating concrete examples means that you can link abstract ideas to real world applications. For example, when studying globalisation in geography, think about a company that has benefitted from globalisation.
• Dual coding means creating visuals to go along with your written work. For example, cartoon strips, labelled diagrams, timelines.
• Retrieval practice is a method whereby students test themselves on topics repeatedly, then check their understanding after they have tested themselves. These tests should focus, not only on recent learning but also on topics that they have not visited recently.
• Elaboration is about asking more probing questions on a topic you have studied, such as “why?”, “how?”, “how is this similar or different to..?”, “what happens next?”.                                                

Many of these strategies could, and should, be combined.  For example, in your elaboration you could create a mind map and link to real world examples.

Here is a particularly useful video to explain these further.  This video is beneficial for students, but also for parents in supporting students.  As parents, you can support your young people to revise by helping them to elaborate on topics or quizzing them and then checking the answers as part of their retrieval practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPxSzxylRCI

These strategies are scientifically proven to help improve memory and recall and consequently improve grades.

As you have not been invited to the parent consultations next week, we feel that some support with revision will strengthen your preparations in these final weeks before the exams. 

As ever, if you do need to speak to a teacher regarding your child’s progress, please do not hesitate to contact the faculty leader directly, who can arrange a phone call to discuss your concerns.

Yours faithfully 

Mr J Burge– Raising Standards Leader Year 11.