A revision timetable is only useful if you follow it, so this page is about building one that is realistic from the first week and that you can keep up for months.
Start from your exam dates
Find out when each of your exams is. Your school will give you a personal exam timetable; until then, ask your teachers roughly when each subject's papers are.
Count the weeks between now and your first exam. That number decides how much you can do each week and how many times each topic can come back. More weeks means lighter weeks, which is the main reason to start early.
List your topics and colour them
For each subject, get the list of topics from your exam board's specification. Your teacher can tell you which one you are on, and each subject on the DoRevision revision pages is organised by its specification.
Mark every topic:
- Red: you can't do it, or you have never been taught it
- Amber: you half remember it
- Green: you could answer a question on it now without notes
Red and amber topics get more sessions than green ones. Green topics still need the occasional visit, or they slowly turn amber.
Plan short sessions
A session is one topic, 20 to 40 minutes, with a break after it. Three or four sessions on different subjects are usually more useful than one long sitting.
Each session should make you recall things: answer questions, write out what you remember and check it, or test yourself with flashcards. Reading notes again is the least useful way to spend a session. How to revise for GCSEs explains why, and what to do instead.
Build in the return visits
This is the step most timetables leave out. When you revise a topic, put it back in the plan:
- a few days later
- again a week or two after that
- once more nearer the exam
Each time it comes back, start by testing yourself before looking anything up. Whatever you have forgotten is what that session is for.
Put in the things you can't move first
Before adding any revision, block out school, homework, work, sport, family time and sleep. Then fit the sessions around them. A plan that pretends you have more free time than you do will fall apart in the first week.
Leave one or two sessions a week empty. Some sessions will slip, and the empty ones let you catch up without the whole plan collapsing.
Add past papers nearer the exams
In the last six to eight weeks, swap some topic sessions for past paper practice: single questions at first, then whole papers under timed conditions. Mark them with the mark scheme and turn every lost mark into a topic for the following week. Papers and mark schemes for each board are on the past papers page.
A weekly template
Copy this into a notebook or a spreadsheet, or print this page. Fill one row per day with the sessions you can realistically manage, then tick each one off.
| Day | Session 1 | Session 2 | Session 3 | Return visit | Done |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | |||||
| Tuesday | |||||
| Wednesday | |||||
| Thursday | |||||
| Friday | |||||
| Saturday | |||||
| Sunday |
An example row: Tuesday: Maths (ratio), Biology (osmosis), rest, return visit to the English persuasive writing you did on Saturday.
At the end of each week, look back at the ticks. Move anything you missed into next week's empty slots, recolour any topics that have changed, and plan the next week's return visits.
Check it every week
Plans change. Once a week:
- move missed sessions into the gaps
- recolour topics that have moved from red to amber or amber to green
- give more time to whichever subject you keep avoiding, since that is usually the one that needs it most
Where DoRevision fits
DoRevision's modules are short, mapped to real exam board specifications, and check your answers as you go, so each one fits a single timetable session. You can try a sample question without an account; a free account saves your progress so you can see which topics you have already covered.
Start from your subject on the revision pages, or try one of the modules on this page.