How Much Revision Should My Child Be Doing Right Now?
It is one of the most common questions parents ask me. And it is almost always asked with a slight edge of anxiety, because the answer they get from school, from other parents, and from the internet all seem to contradict each other.
Seven hours a day. Two hours a day. One subject at a time. Spread it across everything. Start in January. Start now.
So let me give you a straight answer, then explain the thinking behind it.
Hours are the wrong measure
The question "how many hours?" assumes that more time in a chair equals more learning. It does not.
What matters is whether the revision is actually working. A student who spends four hours reading through notes with the TV on in the background is not revising. A student who spends 45 minutes doing past paper questions under exam conditions, then marks them and works through every mistake, is. The second student will pull further ahead.
Research published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest by Dunlosky and colleagues in 2013 looked at ten of the most commonly used revision strategies and rated them by effectiveness. Active retrieval practice, where students force themselves to recall information rather than just re-read it, came out near the top. Highlighting notes and re-reading came out near the bottom.
The first thing to check is not how long your child is revising. It is what they are actually doing during that time.
That said, here are the numbers
If your child is in Year 10 or 11 and sitting GCSEs, a reasonable guide for term time is around 1 to 2 hours of focused revision per day on top of homework. As exams approach, that should increase to around 3 hours per day. During study leave in the final weeks before exams, 4 to 5 hours of genuinely active revision per day is appropriate.
These are not targets to stress about. They are a framework.
If your child is regularly hitting those numbers with good quality revision, they are in a solid position. Six or seven hours a day copying out notes or reading the same textbook page repeatedly will not move the needle. More time spent on the wrong methods just means more time wasted.
Surveys of GCSE students in England in 2024 found most were targeting between 1.5 and 3 hours per day during term time. The students achieving the strongest results were not necessarily the ones putting in the longest hours. They were the ones revising consistently and using methods that work.
The spacing effect matters more than total hours
One of the clearest findings in learning research is that spreading revision out over time produces much better results than cramming the same amount of work into a single sitting.
The brain retains information better when it revisits material across multiple sessions with gaps in between than when it tries to absorb everything at once. This is the spacing effect, and it has been replicated consistently across age groups and subjects.
For GCSE students, the practical implication is that revising a topic for 30 minutes a week across six weeks will generally produce stronger exam performance than revising that same topic for three hours in one sitting the week before. A student who starts in January and revisits topics regularly has a structural advantage over a student who waits until April and tries to cram.
If your child is in Year 11 and has not started yet, start now. Even one extra month of spaced revision makes a genuine difference.
What revision methods actually work
Past papers are the single most valuable revision tool available at GCSE level, and the major exam boards publish them for free. Every paper your child does under timed, exam-like conditions tells them exactly where they are losing marks. That information is more useful than any amount of re-reading a textbook.
You can find free papers directly from the exam boards, or from the SHLC free resources page which collects AQA past papers, Edexcel past papers, and OCR past papers in one place. Physics and Maths Tutor is also useful at physicsandmathstutor.com/past-papers.
Before diving into full papers, it helps to know which topics actually need the work. Our GCSE Maths Revision Guide breaks down the full content by topic and tier, and the GCSE Maths Grade Boundaries Tool lets you see exactly how many marks separate your child from their target grade.
Alongside past papers, the methods with the strongest research backing are:
Active recall. Testing yourself without looking at notes. Flashcards, practice questions, or simply closing the textbook and writing down everything you can remember about a topic. The effort of trying to recall something strengthens the memory far more than reading the answer.
Interleaving. Mixing different topics within a single revision session rather than spending the whole session on one topic. This feels harder in the moment, which is a sign it is working. Research suggests interleaved practice leads to better transfer of knowledge to exam questions.
Teaching it back. Trying to explain a topic out loud, as if teaching someone else, is a fast way to find gaps in understanding. If your child cannot explain it simply, they have not fully got it yet.
Re-reading notes, copying out information, and highlighting feel productive but produce very little in terms of actual retention.
Our free learning tools are built around active practice rather than passive reading. Worth bookmarking for regular sessions.
Keeping sessions short and structured
The Pomodoro technique is worth knowing about. It involves studying for 25 minutes, then taking a 5-minute break, then repeating. After four cycles, take a longer break of 20 to 30 minutes.
The brain is not built for sustained focus over long periods. Breaking the day into manageable chunks reduces procrastination, keeps concentration sharp, and means your child can track exactly how much real revision they have done rather than counting hours spent sitting at a desk.
Our digital revision planner is designed around exactly this kind of session-based tracking. It lets students log sessions, track topic coverage, and see progress across all subjects in one place.
How to spot if revision is not working
A few signs that your child's revision is less effective than it looks:
They spend a long time on it but cannot answer questions on the material afterwards. This usually points to passive methods.
They feel confident going into a mock paper but their score does not reflect it. This is sometimes called the illusion of fluency, where reading familiar material feels like knowing it but does not translate into recall under pressure.
They do the same topics repeatedly and avoid the ones they find hard. It is natural to gravitate towards the comfortable, but the harder topics need the most attention. If your child is sitting Foundation tier maths, our guide to the top topics holding Foundation students back is a useful starting point for knowing where to focus. For students targeting grade 7 and above, the grade 9 guide covers what the highest-attaining students actually do differently.
They consistently run out of time on papers. This is a technique problem as much as a knowledge problem, and the fix is more timed practice.
A practical weekly structure
Rather than trying to work out the perfect number of hours, a simple weekly structure helps:
Identify the three subjects needing the most work. Those get the most time. Stronger subjects get maintenance practice rather than the bulk of attention.
Within each session, use active methods. Past paper questions. Flashcard testing. Practice without notes.
Each session should be no longer than 45 to 50 minutes before a break. The brain is not designed for sustained focused effort beyond that without rest.
Revisit the same topics at spaced intervals. Coming back to a topic after a few days, then a week, then a fortnight, is far more effective than covering it once in depth and moving on.
End each session by noting what was hard. That is the list to return to next time.
Getting external feedback makes a real difference
One thing many families overlook is the value of someone outside the household looking at your child's work and telling them exactly where the marks are going.
Teachers are stretched, especially in the run-up to exam season. Getting specific, honest feedback on a past paper or mock exam is genuinely difficult without paying for it.
At SHLC, our mock exam marking service does exactly that. We mark past papers and mock exams for GCSE students across all major subjects and exam boards, and return them with written feedback showing precisely where marks are being dropped and why. It is the fastest way for a student to understand what the examiner is actually looking for.
For more structured support, book a free consultation and we can talk through what your child needs.
Aadam, SHLC Tutors