Whether you’re homeschooling or supplementing your child’s formal education, you’ll know that GCSE preparations are a very big deal. Luckily, there are many ways to help and support your child. Or, if you’re the GCSE student, many ways to learn on your own.
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Increasingly, parents and students are turning to online GCSE tools. With the help of technology, they’re finding better ways to revise for their GCSEs. With these tools, GCSE preparation gets a little easier.
SchoolExams offers free GCSE practice papers online. These are specifically for maths and English. This website provides students with the opportunity to view past papers.
You can try out the types of tasks and questions that will show up in real exams. You can also view example answers and see what grades they’d receive. This helps GCSE students to see how to get the best marks. You also have a chance to write your own answers to questions.
The Telegraph’s Gojimo is the UK’s most popular revision app.
It includes thousands of practice questions for 28 GCSE subjects. Resources are free and include random tests, as well as progress tracking.
Covering only one subject, but doing it well, MathsWatch has been produced by teachers. It includes video clips and practice questions.
One of the best things about MathsWatch is that it rewards the ‘working out process’. If students are on the right track, they’re praised even if their answers are wrong. This can help to build confidence.
MathsWatch costs £375+VAT for a GCSE subscription. This must be paid up-front and must be bought by a school, using a school staff email address.
Exemplar goes above and beyond many online GCSE tools. It offers video tutorials that make students feel like they’re in a classroom. There are practice tests, and each lesson ends with an assessment. Parents can log in and check their child’s progress, to make sure that they’re revising effectively.
The cost of Exemplar Education is a big plus point. Whilst private GCSE tuition can be very expensive, costing a typical £20-25 per hour, Exemplar Education’s GCSE Powerpack is available for a subscription of just £45/month for unlimited access.
Exemplar Education courses are mapped to the UK National Curriculum and the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence and go up to GCSE level.
One of the benefits of Exemplar Education is that the whole family can access online courses. Lessons are designed for 5-16-year-olds. Question – if this is GCSE focussed, is it right to be putting in wider promotional messages?
Children work through at their own pace. Younger children can build their skills whilst their older siblings are revising.
Teachers and tutors are creating YouTube videos to help GCSE students revise. These are a great way to access free online lessons, to improve subject knowledge. But, there are some problems with using YouTube to revise.
You will probably have to sort through dozens, maybe hundreds of YouTube videos, to find a high-quality lesson. It will also be difficult to make sure that the information you’re given is accurate.
There are easier ways to find GCSE tuition videos, but you might strike gold with YouTube. And, it’s a tool that GCSE students are already familiar with.
Revision World is a website containing past GCSE papers. It also has revision resources. Students studying Hamlet, for example, can quickly access important quotes and descriptions of key characters. All resources must be viewed online, or printed, and are not interactive.
One of the longest-running online tools for GCSE revision, BBC Bitesize offers resources for a wide range of subjects and courses.
Resources include Learner Guides split by subject and exam board. Learners can read summaries, then complete online tests with multiple-choice questions.
As it’s the BBC, this online GCSE tool is trustworthy. It’s also free but lacks some of the interactivity of other online tuition programs.
Used by teachers as an impressive shortcut, Twinkl is a website that’s filled with resources that students may have seen in their classrooms.
Teachers use Twinkl to plan their lessons and can download and print worksheets instantly.
At KS4/GCSE level, students can use Twinkl to access PowerPoint presentations, worksheets, and revision timetables.
Twinkl has many free resources, but there are also a lot behind the paywall. Individual memberships are subscriptions starting at £4.49 per month. But, for access to GCSE resources, you’ll need to pay £8.49 per month.
If you have ever wondered how your GCSE teachers can plan their lessons so quickly, then you might discover a lot of familiar worksheets as you browse the Twinkl website!