Revision tips for your school
Revision tips for your school
With exams coming up soon, SBMs need to start to prepare their staff and resources for revision. Plus, revision week is also from the 1st-7th of April, so it is important to start preparing during this week for when students return after Easter. If you provide holiday school, you can also start revision sessions during this week. To help you prepare and plan for revision, we have created some revision tips for your school to ensure students are confident for their exams and have all the right equipment needed too.
Create comfortable environments
Ensure that learning spaces throughout the school are comfortable for students to revise in. Classroom and other spaces such as the library or hall needs to have soft furnishings so that children can focus. The areas need to be quiet spaces so that they can focus on revising without distractions. However, set up areas where collaboration can occur when needed. Sometimes, working together is the best way to revise.
Ensure the designated revision areas in these learning spaces are not in the way of tables or where students spend a lot of learning time in. This is because these revision areas will be used for short amounts of time yet often. Make sure that there is plenty of natural light to boost concentration.
These areas should always be kept tidy by staff and students with all the resources readily available to use. Have exercise paper out on the tables or shelves and plenty of coloured pens that students can use. This way they can sit down and revise straight away.
Work with staff to create timetables
Work with your staff to come up with functional and effective revision timetables for students to stick to. Plan these timetables for within school hours around normal lessons that your staff have planned. Around three short sessions will be enough for each day. It is important not to overwhelm students with too much revision as key information won’t stick in their brains.
Once the timetable has been decided and agreed upon by everyone, encourage staff to pin this up in their classroom for children to see. Print out enough for every student in every different class to have their own personal copy. This makes sure that they are aware of when they need to focus on revising and what is to be expected of them during each session. Provide your staff with popper wallets to give to children to keep these safe and to keep all their revision together.
Remember revision is best short but often
One of the most important revision tips to remember is that revision sessions work best when they are for a short period of time but occur often, due to the short attention span of children. They can stay focused for about half an hour which is the optimal time for revision sessions. This is particularly important for younger children who can grow bored easier.
If you create longer revision sessions than this, students can get distracted, and their revision will be affected. Keep this in mind when scheduling revision for the school with your staff.
Offer a range of practice exam papers
The best way for children to be prepared for their upcoming exams is to offer a range of practice exam papers. This lets them know what types of questions to expect and to understand the wording before they sit their exams. Students will feel more confident if your staff run through multiple previous year papers with them. It is also an opportunity for your staff to identify gaps in their classes’ knowledge and struggling students. Encourage staff to provide additional support to their students to further help them. Doing this makes children feel confident and improves the exam success rate for your school.
Purchase all the necessary tools for the upcoming exams so that children can practise with them and be comfortable using them in their exam. This could be items such as compasses or protractors. Stock up on the most important item students will need for revision, highlighters. These are perfect for highlighting important information in their notes and during practice papers.
Encourage the use of revision games
Advise your staff to use revision games for their students to have fun with revising and to keep their attention. Making revision into games helps children to retain the vital information they need for their exams. To guide your staff how to incorporate revision into games we have suggested a few games that you can pass on to teachers to use.
Create revision raps or poems
Doing this lets students remember information through patterns and rhyme. This game can be done for many subjects, but is perfect for English. The tune and flow of the rap or poem will stick in students' minds and so can answer exam questions easier due to this.
Quiz students
Students can work in teams for support in answering questions whilst still having some competition. Encourage your staff to create topical quizzes using questions that can appear on the exam. These quizzes can be short and interactive. Offer your staff with small prizes that they can hand out to children who answer correctly and who win. This will make them feel rewarded and confident about their knowledge.
Use these revision tips for your school to assist your students with their revising and prepare them for their upcoming exams. Share them with your staff as well and plan how revision sessions will work with them too. Stock up on all the revision essentials and support your school to ensure that children feel confident, prepared and comfortable with the thought of sitting an exam.
For more advice on supporting students and your staff, read our create a support system for teachers and students blog.
