You just started year 11 and you already have a science test and mocks coming up in a couple of weeks. You have 10 GCSEs to study for and have no idea where to start. You’re already starting to feel the overwhelm. To make matters worse, you have no idea how to revise for the subjects you’re finding hard and you’re not even planning on taking them after GCSE. With all this on your plate, you are wondering how do I survive year 11?
The good news is, you are not alone. Surviving year 11 has been achieved by many students over, and with implementing just some of the tips below, you will be able to do it too.
How to Survive year 11
1. Get int a routine
The first thing you can do to help make year 11 more manageable is to get yourself into a routine. Take the time to draft a timetable that shows when you can work daily and how many hours of work you can fit in. About two to three hours should be fine to start with. Then spread all your subjects across the timetable. Make sure you prioritise the subjects you find more challenging as well as those with a heavy content. In many cases, this means doubling the amount of time for these subjects.
So, if for example you have 10 GCSEs to study for, with four of them being your priority subjects, you can schedule in three hours of study time daily and allocate an hour a week to all your subjects, except for your priority subjects which will need two hours. Leave the weekends completely free to start off with. Also, during the weekdays, you won’t necessarily be studying for three intensive hours a day, you just want to have a system to help your brain get used to a routine. As you follow the system, you will start to learn more about how you study and how long you can focus for. This will help make it an easier transition when you come to start revising more intensively by term two.
2. Learn how to revise
As mentioned above, the good thing about starting to use a timetable early on in year 11 is that it gives you time to learn how you revise. You will find that certain methods work for you and others don’t. For example, you may prefer note-taking and listening to GCSE podcasts rather than watching subject-based videos. This means that as you go into term two, you already know what revision methods you like and you can get straight into your revision without wasting any time.
Also, whenever you sit down to study, you should use the top two scientifically-backed revision methods that work. The first one is active recall. Active recall simply means that you actively try to remember what you have learnt. A good way to implement this is to read a page, cover the page and then recite what you have learnt. You can do this by just saying it out loud to yourself or writing it down. If it’s something that requires understanding of a chart or diagram, like is common in biology, then draw it out. You can then go back to your notes or textbook, check the answer and fill in what you missed. Repeat this until you get it 100% right. The second revision method is to space out your learning rather than cram last minute. By spacing out your learning over time, you give your brain time to process and consolidate the information. There’s more info on spaced learning here.
3. Make the most at school
As a teenager, you have a lot on your mind. You’re not sleeping well and you probably don’t even enjoy school. Going in to school five days a week is just a mundane activity that you have to do and you’re not really thinking about the future. Well, all that aside, if you want to survive year 11, you’ll need to start taking school seriously. Start by actively paying attention in class. Don’t get distracted by class clowns. Focus on the learning outcomes that the teacher gives you and make sure you are achieving them during the lesson. If you don’t understand something, ask the teacher during the lesson or stay back for 10 minutes at break time, lunchtime or after school. The time you spend actively focused in your lessons to learn a topic is time saved trying to relearn concepts later.
4. Take your mocks seriously
Many students believe that as mocks are not the ‘proper’ exams, they shouldn’t worry about it. Well, let me let you in on a little secret. If you treat the mocks like they were your real exams and revised for them as much as you can, your final exams in June will be a breeze. If you put in the effort now, you’ll be able to identify your weaker areas. This could be specific topics, mathematical skills in science or answering extended questions. So, when you sit down to revise for your main exams, you can start by tackling your weaker areas first. Revising intensively for your mocks will also give you a better idea of how best you learn (your learning style) and how long you can concentrate for. So, when you start to revise in term two for your final exams, you can get straight into it.
5. Start revising as now
This might be a given, but many parents and students still feel that exam revision should be left until the last few months before the exam. The curriculum is not only bigger, it is also more challenging and many schools have now started GCSE science in year 9 to remedy this. Unless you are a genius, I highly recommend that you start revising NOW! This doesn’t mean that you have to tie yourself to a desk three hours a day, but when you come home, start to go through your notes from school. If you don’t understand something, spend 5 minutes reading your book or checking a site like BBC Bitesize or Pass My Exams to help you. Revising early means you repeatedly go over the information which will eventually drive it into your long-term memory.
6. Create revision resources as you go
Start getting into the habit of creating revision resources as you go along. Create flashcards, mind-maps, revision notes or whatever else work for you. These things can be time-consuming especially if you are a perfectionist like me and want a pretty set of notes. By the time you get to Easter holidays, you just want to revise, you won’t have the time to create revision resources as well, so start doing these now! As soon as you finish studying a mini-unit you should block out one to two hours to create revision resources. They will serve you well later in April when everyone else is frantically trying to organise themselves, all you are doing is focusing on actively learning and retaining the information.
7. Get help early
Our next tip for how to survive year 11 is to get help early. If you find you are struggling with certain subjects or just overwhelmed with your GCSEs, don’t suffer in silence. Get help now! If you need subject-specific help, there are tons of YouTube videos, and GCSE specific websites like BBC Bitesize or Seneca learning that you can use. If you still need additional help, find out what subject-based help the school provides and use them. There’s also the option of using a tutor. There are several tutoring options available from small groups, to 1:1 or online, so you will be sure to find something that suits you. If you’re just overwhelmed with your GCSEs and don’t know where to start, ask to see your school counsellor or speak to a teacher you trust to get some advice.
8. Revise effectively
Revision can be a mundane task. So very often, students will sit at their desk for one hour and then tell themselves they have effectively done one-hour revision. If you ask them what they have studied, they probably wouldn’t be able to tell you. To study effectively, the 25 minutes or 50 minutes that you spend revising should be active rather than passive. Go into your revision session with a goal of what you want to learn. Then at the end of the session, check that you have achieved the goal. The best way to do this is to use the READ-COVER-RECITE method. If you can do this then you have successfully achieved your learning goal for that study session. You don’t want to fall into a habit of sitting at your desk, looking at your book and not really learning anything at the end. It is best you study 30 minutes effectively than three hours passively.
9. Create a study plan
There is a saying – “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. Take time out to create a study plan. For all of your subjects, identify the number of sub-units (small topics) that need to be covered and then plan how long it will take you to cover these topics. Write each topic in your study plan along with the dates you plan to cover them. This exercise will put your mind at ease as you know you have planned time to cover everything on the syllabus. And you can use it throughout the year to keep you on track.
10. Practise Questions
Practising questions are a really effective way to test your understanding of what you have learnt. I recommend doing past papers after the end of a sub-unit or at least one large unit, to see how much you’ve learnt. An easy way to do this is to use workbook such as CGP or Scholastic as the questions are topic based and specific for each examining board. CGP has questions targeted at different levels, so you can focus on the grades that you are aiming to achieve. If you don’t have exam workbooks, there are tons of practice and summary questions in the student textbook. You can also make up your own questions as you study and then answer them later on.
11. Take it easy
In the grand scheme of things, year 11 is just one year of your entire life. Don’t take it too seriously. Plan time to go out with friends & family and get involved in extracurricular activities. At least in the first term of year 11, try not to study over the weekends. When you revise, take plenty of breaks. You should not revise for more than 50 minutes without a 10 to 15 minutes break. Take an hour break to have dinner with your family or watch a nice programme. Enjoy the journey and make the most of it.
How to Survive year 11: Final Thoughts
So, that’s 11 tips on how to survive year 11. What are your thoughts? Any tips that are completely new to you? What about those things you know you should be doing but for some reason have not yet implemented? These are all methods that past successful year 11 students have used. So, if you use even just a few of them, you’ll also come out successful on the other end.
If after implementing these you feel you still need some help in year 11, contact me.
