A revision programme is a small set of decisions, not a timetable. Decide what gets revised and in what order, how often a topic comes back, who chooses the next thing, what happens to the results, and what you're going to stop doing to make room. Once a department has answered those five, the calendar takes an afternoon to write. Skip them and you tend to end up with a document nobody follows by November, because every week turns into a fresh argument about what to cover. The decision that gets missed most often is the last one. A programme added on top of an unchanged scheme of work is competing for time that isn't there.
Most revision programmes are written as calendars. Week one, respiration. Week two, photosynthesis. They're reasonable documents, and a lot of them are abandoned by half term, because a calendar takes for granted several decisions that nobody has actually made.
The five decisions
1. What gets revised, and in what order. Specification coverage, or last mock's weakest topics. Both are defensible and they give you different programmes: coverage is fairer, weakness is quicker. Pick one to lead.
2. How often a topic comes back. A topic covered once is a lesson. The gap matters more than the total time, and coming back to something after three weeks does more than coming back after three days.
3. Who chooses the next thing. Teacher chosen keeps coverage honest. Student chosen builds the independence you want by March. Most departments drift into the first and never look at it again.
4. What happens to the results. Decide in advance what a recall task leads to: reteach, move on, or hand it back to the student. Without that, it's just an activity.
5. What you're going to stop. This is the one that gets skipped, and it's usually why programmes die. If a revision routine is bolted onto an unchanged scheme of work, it's competing for time that isn't there.
Making it small enough to survive
The programmes that last a full year usually look modest written down: ten to fifteen minutes a week per subject, taken from the start of lessons rather than added to the end of a term.
That's partly about workload and partly about morale. A routine that costs a teacher an hour of marking a week is one of the first things to go in a busy half term. A routine that costs nothing to mark can run to June.
Where this site fits
We supply the activities and the marking. Everything is matched to a published specification, checked as the student works, and short enough to fit the slot the programme actually has.
We don't supply the oversight. Nothing records who worked through what, so there's no programme dashboard and no completion report, and your own assessment data stays the measure of whether it's working. The same boundary is described on the intervention page.
For the weekly slot itself, the fifteen minute activities are the natural unit. Everything is browsable by specification on the revision pages, and the official past papers are there for the measuring half.
Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.
Try one question
In 2010 a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti caused vastly greater loss of life than a magnitude 8.8 in Chile seven weeks later. Which explains it best?
The answer was:
That is one step of 14. A free teacher account opens the rest.
Earlier and smaller than most schools start one. A weekly ten minute recall slot from the beginning of Year 10 tends to do more than an intensive block in April, because it's spaced out and because it's manageable.
Should it be the same across a department?
The shape should be. The content doesn't have to be. Agreeing the cadence and what happens to the results is what makes it a programme, and trying to agree every activity is usually what stalls it.
How much curriculum time does this need?
Less than most departments expect, if it comes out of the start of lessons rather than being added on top. Ten to fifteen minutes a week per subject is a realistic starting point.
Who decides what gets revised next?
Whichever you pick, pick it deliberately. Teacher chosen keeps coverage honest and student chosen builds independence, and they produce different programmes. Most schools drift into the first without ever discussing it.
Can DoRevision tell me how the programme is going?
No. Nothing records who worked through what, so there's no programme dashboard. Your own assessment data is the measure. This site supplies the activities and the marking rather than the oversight.
Does this replace mock exams?
No. Mocks are for measuring and a revision programme is for building. The useful connection between them is using mock question level analysis to choose what the programme covers next.
Put one in front of a class
Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.
15-minute GCSE revision activities for teachersShort, specification-matched revision activities for those spare fifteen minutes: a starter, tutor time, the end of a lesson or a cover period. Students get their answers checked as they work, so there is nothing for you to mark afterwards.
GCSE revision from September to the examsA term by term plan for revision across Year 11: what to run in the autumn, how to use the mocks, and what the last eight weeks should and shouldn't contain. Includes a planning grid you can print.
GCSE revision intervention a department can sustainA workable shape for revision intervention: find the gap, work on one narrow thing, check whether it moved, repeat. Built around what a small department can keep up for a term, and clear about what this site can't tell you.