A guide for parents
My Child Is Starting GCSE Prep: Where Do I Begin?
If you have landed here, you are probably feeling what we felt: this matters, it is coming fast, and nobody handed you a manual. We are two parents whose boys are going through it now. This is the guide we wished existed.
The right answer depends on which year your child is in. So start there: pick your year below and the page adapts to what matters now.
First, which year is your child in?
Year 10 and Year 11 are genuinely different jobs. Pick yours and the page adapts to what matters right now.
How revision builds across the year
Showing Year 10 through to Year 11 start. The first term is highlighted: this is where the habit forms.
Sept to OctStart here
20 min, 3-4 days
Review what was taught that week; flashcards on recent topics.
Nov to Dec
20-30 min, most days
Picking up weak spots; short practice questions.
Jan to Mar
25 min, most days
Solidifying earlier topics; some schools run internal tests.
Apr to Jun
30 min, most days
Low-stakes practice for some schools. Use feedback, not the grade.
Summer
10-15 min, a few times
Keep the habit alive, not starting a course. A quiet hold.
Sept (Y11)
30 min daily
Steady review with exam-style questions as mocks approach.
Where are you starting from?
One tap to the most useful part of this guide.
How do you actually start?
Whichever year they are in, the first week looks the same. You are not building a giant timetable. You are starting one small habit and letting it settle before you add anything.
Pick the moment, not the amount.
Decide together when revision happens (after dinner, before screens) before you decide how much. A fixed slot beats a fixed target.
Start smaller than feels right.
Ten to twenty minutes. The aim of week one is that they do it every day, not that they cover a lot. Length comes later.
Make it finishable.
A session with a clear end ("these five questions, then done") gets repeated. An open-ended "go and revise" gets dropped.
Set it up so you can see it without asking.
Whether that is a shared checklist or a dashboard, the goal is that you do not have to interrogate them each night to know it happened.
That is the whole of week one. Once the habit holds, the year-group plans above tell you how to grow it.
How to help without the nightly fight
The question "have you done your revision?" asked every evening is the single most common source of GCSE-related conflict between parents and teenagers. It feels like checking. It lands like nagging. And it does not actually tell you whether they are on track.
- Replace asking with knowing. A dashboard that shows which topics they worked on, and where they keep dropping marks, gives you more real information than a nightly conversation and without the tension. You stop guessing. They stop being interrogated.
- Make the ask smaller, not bigger. When there is resistance, the instinct is to push harder. It almost always backfires. A 10-minute session they agree to is worth more than a 2-hour session they resent and do badly.
- Stay interested, not anxious. "What did you work on today?" lands differently from "did you revise?" One is curiosity. The other is a check. Teenagers can feel the difference.
How will I know if they are on track?
The PrepWise parent view gives you the same picture a teacher has: which topics have been worked on, where marks keep dropping, and how understanding is building over time. Not how long they sat at a desk.
Which subjects they worked on
A clear subject-by-subject view of what has been covered this week, and what has gone quiet.
Where they keep dropping marks
The topics where questions keep going wrong, so you know where help is actually needed.
How mastery builds over time
Progress across every topic, visible without asking. The same signal a teacher would see.
No pinging them. No interrogation. The conversation changes.
How PrepWise helps families starting GCSEs
PrepWise sets a short daily plan around the topics your child keeps getting wrong, gives them exam questions with mark-point scoring so they see where the marks go, brings older topics back with spaced repetition before they fade, and gives parents a view that replaces guesswork with a real picture. Across 9 subjects, no ads, no paywall, free during alpha.
We built it for our own boys because we could not find anything that did all of this without a subscription, a distraction, or a 45-minute onboarding flow. It takes about 5 minutes to set up.
Questions parents ask us most
Six questions we hear from every parent, answered plainly.
My child is starting GCSEs. Where do I even begin?
Begin by working out which year they are in, because the answer is different. Year 10 is the foundation year and the job is a small, calm habit. Year 11 is the year mocks and finals arrive, so it needs more structure and urgency. Once you know which year you are in, the first step is the same: a short, finishable daily session, not a big timetable nobody keeps to.
Is Year 10 too early to start GCSE prep?
No, Year 10 is the best time to start, but lightly. The content is being taught now, so a short review a few days after each lesson is the highest-value revision there is. Twenty minutes most days in Year 10 means Year 11 is about deepening and practice, not learning everything from scratch under pressure.
How much should my child be revising?
In Year 10, around 20 minutes most days is plenty. In Year 11 it steps up to 30 minutes or more daily, rising again before mocks and finals. In both years, consistency beats length: a short session that actually happens five days a week is worth more than a long one nobody repeats.
How do I help without it turning into a fight every night?
Set the system up once, then step back. The nightly question 'have you done your revision?' feels like checking but lands like nagging, and it does not tell you whether they are on track. Replace asking with knowing: a dashboard that shows what they worked on means the daily interrogation stops and the conversation can move on.
How will I know if they are on track?
On track in Year 10 means keeping up and not letting any subject go dark for weeks. In Year 11 it means being genuinely ready for mocks and acting on the gaps they reveal. A parent dashboard that shows which topics they have worked on and where they keep dropping marks tells you far more than asking how school went each evening.
Is PrepWise free?
Yes, PrepWise is free during alpha: no ads, no paywall, across 9 subjects. We built it for our own boys, so charging families to use it was never the point of starting.
Ready for the detail? See the Year 10 revision plan or the Year 11 revision plan for the week-by-week shape, or compare the best free GCSE revision apps if you are still weighing options.