Year 11 Revision Day October 2024
Year 11 Revision Day was held on the 21st October. If you missed the presentation, we have shared the resources from the parents session for you below.
It was a very successful day in which students were exposed to 5 main topics:
- Managing your time: How to create a revision timetable
- Exam practice paper folders and how to prepare for your exams
- Revision techniques – How to use flash cards
- Revision techniques - How to use Mind maps
- Elevate session - How to get the best out of your exams and what to do on the day
Managing your time: How to create a revision timetable
This session was focused around how to plan a revision timetable. There are 3 key steps when preparing a timetable. WHEN – WHAT – HOW
WHEN – When you should be revising: Plan your week so that you can see the gaps in which you can put on a revision session at the same time keeping a balance between study and free time.
WHAT – Using the topics list that have been provided in your booklet, identify what subject and most importantly what topic you will work on in that revision session.
HOW- Using the strategies that were covered during the day (Map it – Shrink it - Quiz it – Link it / practice papers / Mind maps / Flash cards / Sparks / Educake etc) identify how you are going to revise for the revision session.
Revision session should usually be around 25-30 min long and then it is important to have a break. Then the next session can start. More information can be found here on the school website.
Exam practice paper folders and how to prepare for your exams
This session discussed the rationale and science behind revision. It all started with finishing the lyrics to Jingle Bells, All I want for Christmas and an iconic Whitney Houston song. The point is, all students could remember the lyrics, because they had heard them before, many times, but more significantly they had committed the lyrics to their long-term memory through ‘rehearsal’ and ‘practice’, essentially singing along. The best way to prepare for anything is to practice it, and to practice it with the same expectations and intensity as when you need to perform under pressure. In our session we handed our folders with top tips, past papers and mark schemes (other resources will be accessible on SharePoint). Students RAG rated a science paper, and so we have done the hardest thing, started the revision process, identifying questions that require a bit of research before we can practice. Students demonstrated an excellent understanding of how to practice and seem keen to get started. The final thing we talked about, were creating habits of success. Viewing the exam hall as a place where they excel and perform to the best of their ability, this is because they are prepared, but also because when they practice there, they practice how they want to perform, committing all of their good habits to instinct, like re-reading and BUGing questions, re-reading answers, using one more connective, highlighting and annotating a source etc.
Revision techniques – How to use flash cards
This session was focussed on how to Shrink It and Quiz It. We focussed on how we can covert large sums of text into meaningful flashcards for revision. We did this my modelling it with a biology knowledge organiser. I explained to them how to determine what’s useful and how to categorise the information on the flashcards to make them most useful. After this, students learned how to use the flashcards. We discussed having partners or parents quiz them on the flashcards and we practised this in the session. We discussed useful questions that would maximise the flashcards, such as procedural or fact-based questions rather than ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ ones. We also discussed ‘Flip and Fetch’ as a way of doing rote memorisation of substantive core knowledge and practised this also.
Revision techniques - How to use Mind maps
This session was focussed on how to Map It and Quiz It. We focussed on mind maps for the Map It part whereby the students watched an example being modelled based on Physics knowledge and then were given the opportunity to try their own based on straight line graphs which lead to everyone inputting while I modelled on the visualiser. We discussed elements of mind maps that students may not have considered previously like linking work with arrows, the use of colour, using boxes to highlight important concepts. Once students had been given to study their mind maps, they turned over to see how much they could remember. This was then linked to Quiz IT where I showed the students how Chat GPT could generate very specific questions for them to quiz their knowledge. While doing this I reminded students that they must be specific and state that the questions are to be for GCSE, give the subject and the exam board i.e. GCSE maths AQA.
The Parents after school session
This session focused upon supporting parents with how to prepare and help their child in the run up and during the exams. The PowerPoint is available for parents to access below.
