With many of our students entering their second year of GCSEs just around the corner, we wanted to share some of our top tips, for how you can get ahead early and ace your exams! 

1. Start revising early! It’s never too early to start creating those revision resources for yourself, whether it’s condensing down your notes, making revision cards or preparing all the material you need. The summer before your GCSEs is the perfect opportunity to go over all of the content you have covered in the first year, allowing you to ensure that you have a solid foundation of understanding to build on. 
2. Teach others! Teaching is the perfect opportunity for you to discover what you do and don’t know, with others asking you questions, you’ll begin to notice where the holes in your knowledge are, and it will help you to better understand which areas you need to revise more. At our tuition centre we actively encourage our students to explain their understanding to us, so we can help them to determine which topics they are struggling with. 
3. Create a realistic revision timetable. As the mocks and exams approach it is important that you create a timetable well in advance, so as to ensure that you have plenty of time to revise. Make sure that your timetable allows for some time off, and does not expect you to do more than a working day’s worth of revision, your brain needs time off to process the information and if you start early then you should have plenty of time to prepare. 
4. Understand your learning style. You can check out our blog post on the different learning styles to find out more. Understanding your learning style will allow you to put together the most effective revision plan and allow you to better understand how you can utilise the resources of the classroom to benefit your revision. 
5. Do plenty of practice papers and questions!! This is our absolute number one tip – no number of revision cards or notes are a substitute for sitting down and doing past paper questions. It is likely that the questions that come up in your exam will be similar to those asked in previous years. This will also help you to understand which topics you have revised enough, and which ones need more work, or if there are specific parts of the syllabus that you do not understand. Make sure you do papers under time conditions as well, you want to try and replicate the exam conditions as much as possible, so when you can, try to answer questions in a quiet environment and without using the mark scheme to help you too much.

As always, our tutors are around to help, whether you’re struggling with revision or exam technique, we have years of experience in helping students succeed. Contact us to find out more about how we can help you or your child, and book your free assessment.