Reading Time
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Written By
Alyx JordanFounder, Ivy MathsIn this article
A revision plan usually starts the same way. You copy the topic list from the front of your textbook, share the weeks out evenly and colour it in. By the second week you're behind, the plan looks wrong, and you stop using it.
The trouble is the starting point. A list in textbook order gives fractions the same time as vectors, even if you could do fractions in your sleep and have never understood vectors. A maths plan works far better when it starts from what you can't do yet.
1. Step 1: Find out which topics you can already do
Before you plan anything, test yourself across the whole course. A mixed set of questions works, and so does an old mock paper, as long as it covers most topics. Mark it honestly and put every topic into one of these groups.
| Group | What it means | Share of your sessions |
|---|---|---|
| Secure | You got it right without notes and could explain how | About 15% |
| Shaky | You got some marks, or got it right without being sure why | About 50% |
| Not started | You couldn't begin, or the topic looked unfamiliar | About 35% |
The percentages are a starting point. If most of your topics land in the last group, give that group more time and let some shaky topics wait a week.
2. Step 2: Count the sessions you really have
Count sessions rather than hours, because a session is something you can tick off. Say there are six weeks until your mocks, and you can manage five sessions after school plus one at the weekend: 6 × 6 = 36 sessions. Take off a few for evenings you already know are busy and you might have 30.
A good maths session is 30 to 45 minutes. Much longer than that and most people drift into reading notes instead of answering questions.
3. Step 3: Space the hard topics out
Give each shaky or unstarted topic at least three sessions, spread out: one to learn or relearn it, one a few days later, and one about a week after that. Coming back after a gap feels harder, and that effort of remembering is what makes the method stay.
The research backs this up. A large review of study techniques by Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) rated spaced practice and self-testing as the two most useful techniques they examined, while rereading and highlighting came out as low utility.
Secure topics still get a place, as a few warm-up questions at the start of other sessions, so you don't lose them.
4. An example week
This is a week for a Year 11 student sitting Higher tier, five weeks from mocks.
| Day | Main topic (30 min) | Warm-up (10 min) |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Vectors: column vector notation and adding vectors | 4 questions on angle rules |
| Tuesday | Simultaneous equations: second session | 4 questions on percentage change |
| Wednesday | Circle theorems: first session | 3 vector questions from Monday |
| Thursday | Recurring decimals to fractions | 4 questions on standard form |
| Friday | Empty, for catch-up | |
| Saturday (45 min) | Mixed questions on this week's topics, no notes | |
| Sunday | Rest |
Monday's vectors come back as Wednesday's warm-up, two days later and before they've faded. That short return does more than a second full session on Monday would.
5. Step 4: Leave room for the plan to go wrong
Keep one session a week empty. A cold, a late training session or a topic that takes twice as long as expected will happen at some point, and an empty slot lets you catch up without the whole plan sliding.
6. Step 5: Re-sort your topics every two weeks
A plan is a guess about where your gaps are. Every fortnight, do another mixed set and move topics between groups. Some shaky topics will now be secure and can drop to warm-ups. One or two you thought were secure will turn out not to be, and they move up.
If a topic has had three spaced sessions and still won't go in, the problem is usually an earlier skill. Trouble with algebraic fractions, for example, is often trouble with ordinary fractions underneath.
7. Start with an accurate list
Everything in this plan depends on Step 1, and it's the step people are most tempted to guess. The Ivy Maths Full Assessment tests your year group's whole course and shows which topics are secure and which aren't, which gives you the first column of your plan in one sitting. Take the Full Assessment for your year, then put your five weakest topics into next week's Monday to Thursday slots.