It’s almost time for trial exams to begin for our Year 11 and Year 13 pupils, which means that the official exams are just around the corner. Whilst we suspect most of our pupils are already revising for the upcoming exams, we wanted to collate some of our top tips for the most effective revision.

Revision Timetables

Cramming in hours of revision at once without any breaks is not a successful way of revising. Not only will it prevent you from remembering things, it will also cause you to burn yourself out. Research over the years has shown that revising in short 20 to 30 minute spells is the best way to revise, as it allows your concentration to stay at a maximum. Taking short, frequent breaks in between revision sessions can help keep you motivated, as well as ensuring your revision is worthwhile.

Exercise

Although you may think all your time should be spent indoors with your head in a book, taking part in physical activity during revision periods is actually very important. Exercise increases your heart rate, which makes the blood circulate faster and in turn ensures that the brain gets more oxygen. If you’re feeling tired or stressed about upcoming exams, exercise will increase your productivity.

Use Colours

Everybody has their own successful ways of revising whether it be rewriting notes, testing themselves or simply just reading but one thing we find always helps pupils is to use colour. The brain is wired to recognise colours and so using different coloured pens to write down notes or simply using coloured post-it notes or paper will help you memorise facts better!

Complete Past Papers

There is a large focus on exam technique and approach from the exam boards nowadays, so the best way to tackle this is through completing past papers. This will help you familiarise yourself with the exam and layout which will save you time in the exam itself. If you complete lots of different past papers, you’ll soon see that some questions are repeated or incredibly similar in other papers and so will be more familiar to you on the day of the exam.

Stay Positive

As we always say, all we ask of our pupils is to try their best. Putting unnecessary pressure on yourself or attempting to revise every minute of every day will only have a negative effect. Go into the exam with your head held high, knowing that you worked as hard as you could.

We wish all our pupils about to take exams the best of luck. Please remember that we are always here to help you with your revision, so don’t hesitate to go and speak to your subject teacher if you’d like any help.