Teenagers Don't Go 0 to 60

I received a really interesting email from a man named "Swolenourmous". He was a very big man. He was selling gym programs aimed at getting me massive arms and an 8 pack. I sighed as I expected to be told to go to the gym 6 days a week, eat 300g of protein a day and do 10,000 push ups every hour on the hour for the rest of my life.

But no. He said "If you're just starting out, the first week I just want you to go to the gym 3 times a week and do one exercise and then go home".

My initial surprise at this shed sized man being so sincere and understanding to where people are at, soon passed as I thought does this apply to revision too?

Students tend to pick a point in the year and just go all in with their revision. They do no revision until April of year 11 and then suddenly it goes from zero to 15+ hours week. I can only imagine this is like never stepping foot in the gym, and trying to pick up the heaviest dumbbell on the rack.

Perhaps we should encourage a gradually build up. We're correct in encouraging teens to start revision early in the year, but how about we have a gradual progression? Here's what that would look like:

July of year 10: Identify all weak topics from a past paper and design a revision plan for year 11

September of year 11: Revise (grade 4 topics for higher and grade 1 topics for foundation)

October of year 11: Revise (grade 5 topics for higher and grade 2 topics for foundation)

November and December of year 11: 1 past paper a week and revise (grade 6 for higher and grade 3 topics for foundation)

January of year 11: 1 past paper a week and revise (grade 7 topics for higher and grade 4 topics for foundation)

February of year 11: Revise (All grade 8 and 9 topics for higher and all grade 4 and 5 topics for foundation)

March of year 11: 2 past papers a week and log all weak topics

April of year 11: 2 past papers a week and revise weak topics for 30 min a day

May of year 11: Same as above

Taking this gradually build will help:

#1] Less stress caused overall

#2] Longer preparation time

#3] More revision overall

#4] Better focus points

#5] Better preparation in general

Give something like this a try!

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Mr Smyth

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