Today marks “50 days to go until GCSE Paper 1“. Just typing it makes me a bit twitchy. With that in mind, I thought I would share a revision strategy I have used with my lovely Year 11s this week, just in case it is useful to you.

So, my class have been answering lots of diagnostic questions each week since September – it is one of the downsides of having the creator of the website as their teacher (on the positive side, I did give them each a highly exclusive DQ pen the other week). This means the website has built up lots of data on what they can and can’t do.

By visiting the Subjects section of the dashboard, students can actually view their maths performance broken down by specific topics.

This goes right down as far as they need, for example Number > Fractions > Equivalent Fractions.

They are then shown all the questions they have attempted in this subject, ordered by the ones they got wrong first. Also they can see their previous attempt and explanation.

Students then have the opportunity to try the question again, or read through 100s of explanations given by students all around the world until they find one that makes sense to them.

They can then answer lots of questions on this subject to see if their understanding has improved. My GCSE Maths Takeaway page is a good place to start.

The feedback from my students has been really positive – although they know that I cry if they say anything bad about the website. They said it has really helped them know exactly where to focus their revision.

Anyway, here is a video showing you what I am on about. I hope it helps you and your students.