GCSE

Approaching GCSE summer can feel like being at Base Camp of Mount Everest. It is the first time that students are faced with such a large amount to revise, across such a wide range of subjects.

Particularly if there are some subjects that students are struggling with, this can be incredibly daunting. However, the good news is that fear before embarking on the revision timetable is the worst it gets! Students find that with a proper revision timetable, as soon as they start to check off topics and are able to address some areas of confusion in subjects that had they’d been worried they’d never crack, suddenly the whole process seems more manageable. That’s not to say that it suddenly becomes easy but it becomes achievable, and students can begin to feel satisfaction when they realise they are now half-way up the mountain!

The important thing is for a student to structure his or her revision plan in an organised fashion, mapping out each and every topic that has to be covered in advance so that the schedule can be planned accordingly. From experience, students who have left this revision too late end up with a couple of months of panic before the start of their exams, expending as much energy on stress and anxiety as they do on revision. Conversely, often those students who start to worry about revision timetables too end up with a similar battle overcoming stress, and much of their GCSE year becomes about managing anxiety levels. A balance is vital - if a revision plan can be devised where a healthy amount of work is done in an organised fashion with ample time to cover each revision topic, work through topics that are not yet understood and complete past papers, then stress can be minimised and a student’s time spent much more happily and productively.

The key is to address the areas of difficulty early. Particularly with the new 9-1 syllabuses, many papers are becoming far more difficult and given the time that is often needed to work through these areas of confusion this cannot be left too late. At Pegasus, we have a team of highly qualified, experienced and devoted GCSE teachers and tutors, all with years of experience preparing students for their GCSEs inside and outside of schools. They are right up to speed with the current syllabuses, share a passion for teaching their subject and are happy to help out as much or as little as a student needs - whether this be helping with a single topic that is causing confusion or working with a student to devise an entire revision schedule right up to the day of their exams.

It is the case with exams at all ages, but perhaps most of all with GCSE, that assessing a student’s learning style can be a huge help when it comes to revision. Often even the same student will benefit from different revision techniques between subjects; perhaps past papers work best for Maths, revision flash cards for Latin, pinning quotes on the walls for English Literature and applying the method of loci for History revision. It is certainly beneficial to assess whether a student’s learning style is visual, auditory or kinaesthetic as the method of revision which will maximise their potential can then be adapted.

For any further information or to speak to one of our GCSE team, please don’t hesitate to get in touch! A list of the GCSE courses that we cover can be found below (you can also review the subject pages on the Pegasus website), as well as some other helpful revision sites and resources. We look forward to hearing from you!