Saturday 25 January 2014

How do you motivate your Year 11 to revise?

I often show my classes Ebbinghaus's Forgetting Curve to talk about how important it is to structure their revision so that they remember the maximum amount of information by the time they sit their exam in June.




With 6 months to go, how can I motivate them to start revising now and then to sustain it?

Here are the ideas tried so far by our faculty:

1)  Students have access to this symbaloo - I've collected links to useful wesites/videos etc and all they have to do is click on the one they want and it opens in another tab - I also set homework from it:





2)  We are currently offering a weekly draw for a pair of cinema tickets for students who attend after school revision on a Wednesday.  We keep registers, ask students why they haven't attended, phone parents of 'key students' if they don't attend,  put messages out on the tannoy, stand at the doors and turn Year 11s back when they try to leave at the end of the day in the nicest possible way obviously!  We had over 100 Year 11s attend last week so it's definitely working so far!

3)  Parents emails have been collected and they receive well-timed messages about important dates in Maths, past papers, links to resources etc.

4) @suffolkmaths have lots of great resources here


5) @Jeremy_Denton has been using Revision Races to add some competition.  See an example here

6) @DJUdall has a twitter feed dedicated to revision.

7) @jojobee21 has suggested biscuits!  Never underestimate the power of snacks!

8) 3 sets of Foundation 'Need to know' Loop Cards.  Download from TES here

9) @Maths4ukplc reminds them that getting a C is the only way to not be doing it again next year!

Thought it would be great to gather together some ideas to share on the run up to GCSEs so which resources or ideas do you use to motivate your students to revise?  

Add a comment below or tweet @themathsmagpie

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