21 March 2019

Dear Parent/Carer,

RAISING ACHIEVEMENT
Year 10 Revision: Little and Often

I write to thank you for continuing to support your son/ward in preparation for his internal Year 10
examinations and his external GCSE statistics; these take place in June - July 2019. A large
majority of students are increasingly prepared and organised, conducting daily revision. Please
continue to monitor your son/ward closely on this profoundly important matter.

Further to this, it is now absolutely vital that your son/ward revises over the Easter holiday period.
To support this expectation, it is vitally important that your son/ward and yourselves take the main
responsibility for his academic progress. This can be achieved by following a number of steps:

1. Quantity of revision: ensure that your son/ward revises for four hours each day over the
holiday period and for two hours every school evening. Encourage him to a) design a revision
timetable and b) revise both in the morning as well as the afternoon when they are most
attentive. There is no such thing as having no PPA (homework); active revision is PPA.

2. Quality of revision: your son/ward must use the range of active revision techniques which he
has been taught in his subjects. The most effective active revision techniques include: (1)
knowledge organisers (retrieval practice, words and pictures, mind-maps); (2) past papers
with practice questions; (3) flash cards; (4) peer tutoring; (5) rote-learning (quotes for English)
and; (6) using ICT websites (BBC Bitesize, Diagnostic Questioning, and SAM Learning).
Passive revision techniques such as simply reading and/or highlighting text are wholly
ineffective.

3. Year 10 examinations: the external GCSE statistics examinations take place on Thursday 13
June and Tuesday 18 June. Additionally, the internal Year 10 examinations cover the full
range of subjects; the schedule for these internal examinations is included in this pack. Given
this, it is crucial that your son/ward stays in the habit of revising for all his subjects. Encourage
him to switch subjects and topics within subjects every 30 minutes; this is called interleaving
and is a proven, highly effective technique to support long-term memory.

The internal GCSE art examination takes place over two days: Friday 21 and Monday 24 June.

A list of other recommended websites to aid revision, including video clips, are posted on the
school website as are the official JCQ examination regulations. Some resources have been
emailed to your son/ward and are included in this pack. Finally, if any parent/carer has not
purchased revision guides and/or workbooks, it is never too late to do so. These essential study
support items can be bought from the school shop. Thank you for your continued support.

Yours sincerely,

Mr S Fisher
Deputy Headteacher