This Friday Takeaway is a revision resource written by one of our regular writers Paul Dodd, one of the Ofqual advisors for the new 9-1 exams.

Succinct and organised this is a useful set of documents for those final weeks.

Some of this advice, I am sure, is teaching 'grandma to suck eggs' but we included everything, so you can share this with new members of the department heading for their first exam season.

No matter how long we've been at it we can always remember that first time... 

• Within this guide there are a range of activities which you can use with your students in the run up to the final linear exams.
• Revision can be seen as being rather dull but hopefully the materials here will help you in making this crucial part of the two year course manageable and interesting.
• Please dip into these chapters at various times in your final run up to the exam. Please note that some of the chapters occur under both Language and Literature headings as they relate to both subjects.

GCSE English Language and Literature

Edusites Teacher’s Guide to GCSE English Revision

What will you find in there?

• Final Lesson Examiner Tips for Students
• Subject Terminology
• Exam Room Strategies
• The Edusites 3 Day Intense Revision Programme for GCSE English
• The importance of SPaG and how to write effectively in exams
• AQA Quick Check Spec GCSE English Language and Literature
• Edexcel Quick Check Spec GCSE English Language and Literature
• Eduqas Quick Check Spec GCSE English language and Literature
• OCR Quick Check Spec GCSE English Language and Literature

GCSE English Language

• Revising GCSE English Language Effectively

GCSE English Literature

• Revising GCSE English Literature Effectively

Poetry

For this a range of activities are listed below both for the revision of the anthology poems and the unseen element. These can be adapted depending on the anthology studied and the format of the final assessment.

• Student Guidance on Unseen Poetry in the Exam
• AQA Example Classroom Activity for Revising Unseen Poetry
• OCR Example Classroom Activity for Revising Unseen Poetry
• Edexcel Example Classroom Activity for Revising Unseen Poetry
• Eduqas Example Classroom Activity for Revising Unseen Poetry

Within these chapters there are a series of ideas for the classroom which can be cut and pasted into slides, tasks, quizzes, exemplars and exercises to use with the students as part of the final preparation.

This guide links to the other resources already available on the Edusites English website which will support revision including:

• The trial assessment and mark schemes for all boards
• The live mark scripts for all boards
• The Unseen PoetryAnthologies for all boards
• The Non Fiction Anthologies (Unseen Texts) for English Language

Teacher Guidance

• Learners can make a real difference to their outcomes through effective revision and study skills. As teachers, it is important that we allow time to teach these skills. This can be done discretely and specifically related to English Language and Literature and its requirements.
• Learning will be more effective if skills and concepts are regularly revised and revisited throughout the course and can be modelled through starters and plenaries, homework tasks and opportunities to reflect and make links between prior and new learning in the classroom.
• Learners can be encouraged to explore what kind of learners they are and which strategies work best for them. Practising these strategies through homework tasks will help develop independent learning and the ability to self-manage.

Tips for facilitating good practice in revision

Be aware of, and share, the mode of assessment, its linear structure and the fact it is not assessed until the end of the course. It is even more important that learners are encouraged to revisit learning points, as well as revising at the end. Include study skill strategies and revisiting in your scheme of work.

During the teaching of the course

• Be explicit - show links between prior and new learning and give opportunities to develop reflection on this.
• When a concept is learned and understood, encourage higher order skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation through discussion and problem-solving techniques.
• Reflective writing – this also necessitates the revisiting which enables learning to be stored in the long-term memory.
• Expose your learners to a variety of learning strategies to give variety to their experience and to allow different ways of accessing and reinforcing concepts and skills.
• Use formative, peer and self- assessment throughout the course to inform your future teaching.
• Ensure you have a series of mock or trial assessments to model and practise strategies for learning in an authentic context.
• Just before assessments give opportunities for your learners to reflect on and assess their learning in order to identify personal goals and targets.
• Encourage the planning of revision and a dialogue about revision strategies and its importance, giving guidance on timetabling and the importance of the pattern of committing and recalling, with regular breaks.
• Familiarise learners with the form of the assessment, including time limit, assessment objectives, types of questions, stems, common words in the questioning etc.
• Demonstrate the kinds of questions being asked and what they are assessing, particularly in relation to the assessment objectives.
• Model and give opportunities to practise the breaking down of questions, underlining key words etc, and planning answers through mind mapping and sequencing.
• Share exemplar material with learners – ask them to mark a piece of work against the mark scheme and compare with the mark awarded.
• Teach the mark weightings of questions and the importance of apportioning time appropriately.
• Provide opportunities to practise timings to individual questions, as well as sections or whole papers, again allowing learners to self- or peer-assess by focusing explicitly on the mark scheme.

Have a Great Weekend from The Edusites Team