26 April 2019

Dear Parent/Carer,

RAISING ACHIEVEMENT
Year 9 Revision: Little and Often

I write to thank you for continuing to support your son/ward in preparation for his internal Year 9
examinations; these take place from Tuesday 7 May to Friday 10 May 2019. A large majority of
students are increasingly prepared and organised, conducting daily revision. Please continue to
monitor your son/ward closely on this profoundly important matter.

Further to this, it is now absolutely vital that your son/ward revises over the next few weeks. To
support this expectation, it is vitally important that your son/ward and yourselves take the main
responsibility for his academic progress. This can be achieved by following a number of steps:

1. Quantity of revision: ensure that your son/ward revises for four hours each day over the
weekend and for two hours every school evening. Encourage them to, both, design a revision
timetable and, at the weekend, revise in the morning as well as afternoon when they are most
attentive. There is no such thing as having no PPA (homework); active revision is PPA.

2. Quality of revision: your son/ward must use the range of active revision techniques which he
has been taught in his subjects. The most effective active revision techniques include: (1)
knowledge organisers (retrieval practice, words & pictures, mind-maps); (2) past papers with
practice questions; (3) flash cards; (4) peer tutoring; (5) rote-learning (quotes for English) and;
(6) using ICT websites (BBC Bitesize, Diagnostic Questioning, and SAM Learning). Passive
revision techniques such as simply reading and / or highlighting text are wholly ineffective.

3. Year 9 examinations: the internal Year 9 examinations cover the full range of subjects. Given
this, it is crucial that your son/ward stays in the habit of revising for all his subjects. Encourage
him to switch subjects and topics within subjects every 30 minutes; this is called interleaving
is a proven, highly effective technique to support long-term memory.

A list of other recommended websites to aid revision, including video clips, are posted on the
school website (www.isleworthsyon.org/studyskills) as are the official JCQ examination
regulations (www.isleworthsyon.org/examinations).

Thank you for your continued support.

Yours sincerely,

Mr S Fisher
Deputy Headteacher
sfisher@isleworthsyon.org