The 4 most common questions I get asked about revision timetables
Revision timetables are often a pain in the ass.
I can picture you sitting at the kitchen table with your teenager,
Trying,
Without much luck,
To get your teenager to commit to a plan,
That you believe is enough revision,
And they will actually do!
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That’s why I wanted to help you out.
By answering some of the most common questions I get asked on revision timetables.
So lets get started …
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1) How long should a revision timetable be?
I think the tendency at this stage of the year is to create a revision timetable that will take your teenager to their GCSEs.
Whilst I understand why this makes sense,
I think it almost always proves to be particularly inefficient.
Over the next few months,
Your teenager’s level of competence, confidence and even their priorities will change.
Therefore, it is imperative that the timetable is able to adapt to these changes so it remains as strategic as possible.
I personally aim for 3-5 week timetables based on a few different factors including proximity to the exams and any holiday periods.
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2) How long should a revision session be and can it be broken up?
There are of course exceptions,
But I personally very rarely recommend for revision sessions to be any shorter than 45 minutes.
And my reasons for this are linked in one of my previous emails below.
https://joelfreedman.substack.com/p/why-i-dont-like-the-pomodoro-method
However, I want to address the second part to this question:
Can a one-hour revision session, for example, be broken up?
My answer is,
Yes … But.
Yes, they can be broken up but only if the student is mature enough to do the right things to stay in a good frame of mind in their ‘break.’
Firstly, the break should only be 5 minutes, any longer and you will completely lose the flow.
A break to go to the toilet, have a quick snack or deal with a time sensitive issue make sense.
A 30-minute break to scroll on Tik Tok does not, and will actually reduce a student’s focus and motivation afterwards.
The majority of students have breaks as they find it hard to stay focused.
The problem is I would argue that these are the students that would most benefit from not taking a break when they are focused, and in the flow, as they are going to find it harder to regain their focus.
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3) Should your teenager revise every subject?
As some of you will know,
I am a big advocate of strategic prioritisation.
I strongly believe that students should be spending more time on what matters and less time on what ultimately does not.
Therefore, I always try and skew the timetables that I create to the most important subjects,
Often leaving the least important subjects (for that particular student) with no revision.
This is especially the case when the student is not planning on revising for a large number of hours.
This is going to be more relevant for year 10s and below,
As year 11s are mostly going to be at the stage where they are revising every subject,
But the principle of significant prioritisation still stands true.
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4) For A levels, should you split up your subjects into the different teachers or topics?
When an A level student is creating a timetable,
I believe it serves them to be more specific when it comes to their revision sessions.
So rather than just planning to do geography on February the 28th,
They would plan to do either physical geography or human geography.
We don’t want our students to feel constrained by their timetable,
However, when it comes to A levels there are so few subjects that it pays to ensure that we are really covering all our bases in a strategic, pre-planned manner.
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I hope you have a great week ahead,
Best wishes,
Joel