AllSet

by AvivMatrix

For parents

How to plan revision for school exams

Turn the portion into a list of chapters, keep the list somewhere it is seen every day, and tick each chapter as it is revised. Work backwards from the exam date so the last two days are for going over the hard ones, not meeting them for the first time.

That one change is usually the whole difference. "Study for the science exam" is not a task. It is a project with no first step, which is why it survives eleven days on a list untouched. "Tick chapter four" is a task. And once the chapters are listed, what the child sees is how ready they are rather than how many days are left, which is the difference between a plan and a countdown.

The method, in five steps

This works on paper. Do it with a pencil and the back of the portion sheet if you like.

  • Write the portion out as chapters. Not "science", but chapter three, chapter four, the two diagrams, the definitions list. Between six and twelve lines is usually right. Fewer and each one is still too big to start.
  • Work backwards from the date. Count the evenings actually available, subtract the two before the exam, and spread the chapters across what is left. Those last two evenings are for the ones that did not stick.
  • Do the hardest one first, while there is still time to be bad at it. The chapter a child avoids is the chapter they will meet for the first time on the last night if nobody intervenes.
  • Tick as you go, and leave the ticks visible. The visible pile shrinking is the part that gets a child to the next one. A list rewritten each day loses that.
  • Revisit rather than re-read. A ticked chapter is not finished forever; coming back to it briefly two days later is worth more than reading it twice tonight.

How AllSet runs it

The same method, with the splitting done for you and the list somewhere it cannot be lost.

  • The portion becomes topics. Enter the exam with the portion the school gave you, and AllSet splits that text into tickable topics: chapters, units, the entries in a list. You can edit them, add one, or write the whole list yourself.
  • The child ticks them off. Ticking a topic is revision progress and is separate from the exam itself being over, so the plan is tracked in its own right rather than as a by-product.
  • What the exam shows is how much is done, beside the date rather than instead of it. Four of nine topics ticked tells a child what to do next; eleven days left tells them only to worry.
  • Bigger exams get more runway. A term exam starts being flagged a fortnight ahead, a formative assessment a couple of days ahead, and a class test the day before. A class test does not deserve two weeks of dread attached to it.
  • Finishing the list is marked. When the last topic is ticked the app says so, properly. That moment is the one worth celebrating. It happens before the exam, and it is the part the child controlled.
  • Marks go in afterwards. Over a few terms AllSet can point out a subject coming in below that child's own average, so a little more time goes there next time. Never a comparison with the class, and never a ranking: there is no leaderboard anywhere in AllSet.
An exam open in AllSet, headed PREP CHECKLIST with 5/8 ready beside it and a bar filled a little over half way. Eight chapters are listed below: Quadratic equations, Arithmetic progressions, Coordinate geometry, Triangles and Circles are ticked and struck through; Surface areas and volumes, Statistics and Probability are unticked. At the bottom is a box to add a topic.
The portion, split into eight chapters. Five ticked, three to go. That count is what the child sees, in place of a number counting down.

The exam names follow your school. Class test, FA and term are the defaults, and they can be renamed in Settings, or they arrive already named if your child's class teacher uses AllSet.

If your child is also losing track of ordinary homework

Revision planning tends not to stick while the ordinary week is still a hunt.

An exam plan competes with everything else in the evening, and if nobody can find what is due tomorrow the revision list is the first thing dropped. That problem is worth fixing first. what to change when a child keeps forgetting homework. A tutor can help here too: a tutor a parent invites into AllSet sees which chapters are still unticked, so the hour is spent on those.

Questions people actually ask

How do you plan revision for a school exam?
Turn the portion into a list of chapters, put the list where it is seen every day, and tick each chapter as it is revised. Work backwards from the exam date so the last two days are for going over the hard ones rather than meeting them for the first time. The point of the list is that progress becomes visible: what is left, not how many days remain.
Why does my child never start revising?
Because 'study for the science exam' is not a task, it is a project with no first step. A child cannot begin it, cannot finish it, and cannot tell whether an hour helped. 'Tick chapter four' is a task. Splitting the portion is usually the whole difference between eleven days of nothing and eleven days of something.
When should revision start?
It depends on the exam. In AllSet a term exam starts being flagged two weeks ahead, a formative assessment two days ahead, and a class test the day before. A big exam deserves runway; a class test does not need a fortnight of anxiety attached to it.
How does AllSet track exam revision?
An exam is entered with its portion, and AllSet splits that text into tickable topics: chapters, units, the entries in a list. The child ticks each one as it is revised, and the count of done topics is what the exam shows. Ticking is separate from the exam itself being over, so revision progress is tracked in its own right.
Does my child see a countdown of days left?
The date is there, but what sits beside it is how much of the portion is done. That is deliberate. A number counting down produces pressure and no action; a list with four of nine chapters ticked tells a child what to do next.
Can we record the marks afterwards?
Yes. Marks go in after the exam, and over a few terms AllSet can point out a subject that is coming in below that child's own average, so a bit more time goes there next time. It is always compared against the child's own record, never against the class.
Can a tutor see the revision plan?
A tutor the parent invites sees that child's school week, including when the exams are and what has been set, so a tuition hour can be spent on the chapters that are not ticked yet. She sees only the child she was invited for.

Put the next exam in tonight.

Enter it with the portion the school gave you and let it split into chapters. If your child's teacher is already on AllSet, join her class with the code she gave you and it costs nothing.

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