Exam revision: my son is overwhelmed – how can I help him prepare for his GCSEs, a parent asks

My son did not do very well in his mock GCSEs [which Year 10 students take], a Hong Kong parent writes. He found it very hard to focus on revision during the school holiday and he seems to be overwhelmed with studying so many subjects. Are there any strategies I can suggest to help him revise?

Summer exams may seem like a long way off but they creep up very quickly. The recent mock exams may have given your son a bit of a shock and made him realise that he needs to knuckle down; but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. He has still got time to revise hard and succeed with the right focus and a positive attitude.

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Despite there being a range of popular revision strategies, it has been shown that there are only two techniques that are consistently effective for students; regularly testing themselves and spreading revision out over time. It has been claimed by researchers that these techniques work for everyone whatever their learning style. Other approaches such as revision charts and flash cards may only have marginal impact and will not necessarily lead to exam success.

Preparing for exams through self-testing provides the brain with “deliberate difficulty”. This forces pupils to retrieve information from memory, therefore producing a better memory trace, which builds on prior knowledge. Online questions and quizzes are useful in this respect as well as past papers and tests set by teachers.

Cramming at the last minute is less effective than spreading revision out as constant reinforcement of concepts helps cement long-term memory. If doing a music or drama performance, for example, one wouldn’t start to practise the day before.

This is not to say that a good dose of last minute cramming is not useful and may even lead to a student scraping through an exam. However, it would be an unwise risk to take, especially if your son was going to take advanced classes in that particular subject as his brain is less likely to retain the material needed to build on current knowledge and understanding.

Building a good study routine is vital. There are so many subjects at GCSE it can feel overwhelming. Your son needs to draw up a realistic timetable to help organise his revision across subjects rather than doing each subject in a block. What works for many pupils is to work in short bursts with a break between each session. This gives an incentive to complete each session to relax and do something enjoyable afterwards.

Working with a ‘study buddy’ on occasions can also provide a boost and make revision feel less onerous. Discussion with a peer can also aid understanding and help to keep to a planned revision timetable.

It is crucial that your son learns from the experience of his mock exams. He needs specific feedback from teachers about which areas were problematic and how he can increase his knowledge and skills and reduce the risk of misreading questions. He also needs to find a revision approach that works for him.

Often for teenagers, study and focus can be more achievable later in the day or even into the night. But do bear in mind that getting enough sleep is also important.

Thanks to advances in neuroscience, educators are now more knowledgeable about how the memory works and how to impart the revision techniques that are the most effective.

Generally teachers recommend regularly revisiting work, re-reading and summarising notes, using mnemonics to recall facts and lists and organising personal notes on a regular basis, over weekends and in school holidays for example. This consolidates knowledge and understanding over the year, aiding the introduction of new topics, which layer on top of current understanding to provide deeply rooted subject knowledge.

In subjects like maths and science, gaps in learning can hinder the understanding of new concepts being introduced by the teacher.

Most teachers will model revision strategies and give frequent opportunities for students to practise past papers and test themselves, helping them to be more engaged and focused. It is also beneficial for pupils to teach their peers the subjects they have been revising to consolidate and retain material. This encourages them to elaborate on their knowledge, give clear explanations and answer questions.

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Your son may find visual aids helpful such as graphic organisers, mind maps or flash cards summarising key concepts. Surprisingly, psychologists in the US have discovered that picking out key phrases with a highlighter pen can actually hinder study as focusing on one concept at a time could undermine overall comprehension of the text. However, highlighters should not be abandoned if your son finds them useful.

Some children are naturally more disorganised and less focused than others. Exam time can be stressful for the whole family and it is difficult for parents to avoid “nagging” their children, especially if they feel they are failing or not doing enough work.

The key is to support your son in small ways; be encouraging, have plenty of snacks available and help him to plan things to look forward to between revision sessions. Remind him to look beyond the next few months to the summer holiday when he will have plenty of time to relax and enjoy himself.

Julie McGuire is a former Hong Kong primary-school teacher