Year 10 Summer: How to Give Yourself a Real Head Start on Your GCSEs

Year 10 is ending soon and over 600,000 students are about to go on their summer breaks and be less than 360 days from their first GCSE.

How can Year 10 students prepare for their GCSEs and give themselves the biggest boost going into their most important academic year of their life so far? Let's discuss.

I totally get it - the summer holiday is there to relax. But in all my years of education and GCSE coaching, I've noticed something about those who achieve the highest grades (and I'm talking about how to get a grade 9 in every subject) - they all do a bit of work over the summer. Not crazy amounts, 1 or 2 hours a day. But those hours compound over the long summer and it can take a huge amount of pressure off the GCSE mocks in November or January.

Working over the Year 10 summer was something I discussed with a student of mine a few years ago, Tanay, on my GCSE student podcast [linked at the top of the page!]. He got all 9s (apart from 1 grade 8) and has just started life at Warwick university. It's worthwhile hearing it from an actual student.

Year after year I see students enter the mock exam period in a state! They've got all their notes lying around everywhere from Year 10 and they don't even know where to begin. The majority of students I start coaching after the mocks all tell me they wish they'd started their GCSE revision sooner.

So, let's say this information magically gets through to a student, what could they do in those few hours a day?

Start by condensing down all the notes and classwork obtained in lessons through Year 10. For many subjects, that will be 75% of the GCSE course done! That means you have something to actually work with in preparation for exams. Most of your course is complete and you have 3/4 of what you need to organise. Go through exercise books, A4 pads - all those crumpled up handouts that ended up at the bottom of the bag (yes boys, I'm looking at you!) - and start organizing them into topics. Start putting them on flashcards, or however else you like to store condensed information.

Those end of Year 10 mock results you just got? Useless if you haven't got the paper. You need to request a copy of this and look over every question and every answer. Keep it safe - you're actually going to revise from this. Why? Because the only way you stop yourself from making the same mistakes again is to remember what they were and how to correct them.

Working with him week after week made me realise the groundwork you put in over time really makes an impact on the final result. No mad rush to the finish line, no all-nighters desperately trying to cram in information, no last-minute panic. Invest time in the future, a little bit here and there goes a long way in accelerating depth of knowledge and understanding.

If you found this useful, you might also want to read my guide on how to actually improve your GCSE English grade.

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