Revising Maths (1) You need a topic list. Print off from Jones the Sums, use contents page in front of a Revision Guide, organise your exercise books, etc.

Revising Maths (2) Get three highlighters – green, orange and red. Highlight each topic on your lists as follows: Green – I found this topic easy when we first did it, still find it easy and won’t need to spend much time revising it. Orange – I remember that I could do this topic when we were working on it, but I’m not so sure now so it will need some revision. Red – I struggled with this topic when we first covered it, can’t do it now so will need to work hard to master it.

Revising Maths (3) You now need to divide the days available to you before your exams and plan what you are going to revise. For maths 40-60mins at a time is a good length, so say 5 x 40 min sessions in the week and a longer session on Sunday. Over Half-Term you need to look at working 3-4 hours daily. Remember, sacrifices have to be made.

Revising Maths (4) A revision timetable is really useful – you won’t always be able to stick to it, but at least you’ll know that you can cover everything you need to do before the exams. Make sure that red highlighted topics appear frequently. For example: Monday 26/3 – Maths (Percentages), French (Past Tense), Physics (Electrical Circuits) Tuesday 27/3 – Maths (Pythag), Chemistry (Solutions), Geog (Erosion) Wednesday 28/3 - Etc

Revising Maths (5) Maths revision – break it down like this: Spend the first few minutes having a go at the question you’d set yourself at the end of the previous session (so in the above timetable, on the Tuesday night you’ll do a percentages question). Mark it and when you’re happy move on.

Revising Maths (6) For the next 20 mins go through all you have got on the main topic for the night (Pythag in the above eg). Use your exercise book, text book, JtS and any revision guide you have. Try to condense all you need to know (Mind Maps or Library cards can help here). Now do some questions on the topic (GCSE past paper questions if possible). Make sure that they are questions that you have the answers for so that you can check that you get them correct. (JtS or WJEC Question Bank super useful here)

Revising Maths (7) If you are having problems with understanding or getting questions wrong, get them ready to see your teacher the following day. Nothing will make your maths teacher happier to be called out of the staffroom to be asked for help on something specific – “Sir, I was working on Pythag last night and kept getting this question wrong. Any chance you can spend a couple of minutes at lunch helping me sort it out?”. This works much more effectively than “I can’t do Pythag, what are you going to do about it?”.

Revising Maths (8) Spend the last couple of minutes selecting two questions that you haven’t done (JtS, WJEC). Write one out ready to start tomorrows revision with and write the other on your ‘Sunday Test Sheet’ – this will already have a Percentages question from last night and by next Sunday will have questions on every topic covered that week. Don’t be soft on yourself, pick questions that will challenge you.

Revising Maths (9) Sunday – spend some time scanning through your condensed notes from the previous week. Then do the Sunday Test Sheet, mark it, go back through your notes for the ones you got wrong and feel good about the ones you get right. Change the highlighting on topics that you have now shifted from red to orange and orange to green.

Revising Maths (10) Clearly this method will work for topics other than Maths. The critical thing is that in order to be successful at revision you need to be organised and clear about what you are aiming to achieve in any given session. Boys tend to be very, very poor at this!!