It's revision, but not as we know it

Teachers are turning to the web to help students with revision. Fun, interactive sites - many of which give instant feedback - are encouraging youngsters to swot up, says Julie Nightingale

Do your students understand the U2 glider incident as a seismic event in the history of 20th-century relations between the superpowers? Or as something to do with the hobbies of a super-sized Irish rock band? If the latter, it might be time for a visit to

Heather Scott, deputy head at Allerton high school, Leeds, and secondary representative for the Historical Association, recommends the site for revision, in particular its interactive diagrams exploring themes from the GCSE history curriculum.

Starting from a key question - "What was trench life like during the First World War?" or "How successful was Hitler's economic policy?" - students work in groups to explore different aspects of the question, typing their answers into the diagram's text boxes. With a word limit of around 50, it demands succinct responses; if they get stuck, the diagram offers hints. Through a data projector, the results can be viewed by the entire class.

There is a wide selection of ready-made diagrams to work from. These have been produced by other teachers, including model answers, but teachers and pupils can also create their own using the downloadable software.

"It's visually stimulating and the good thing about it is you can do it as a class or with the students in groups," says Scott. "They can all play a part in creating the diagram, and at the end you can print it off so they can use it to revise from."

It can be used for other age groups, though it works better as a whole-class activity with younger children, she says.

Free resources created by teachers, like, are an expanding area (other popular ones include and, but paid-for services that offer access to revision materials across the curriculum are also booming. One of their significant advantages is the scope they offer for student feedback - something which teachers who run free services often don't have time to give.

King Edward VII school in King's Lynn subscribes to Sam Learning, an online revision service that students can log on to from school or home. It features a series of interactive tasks for each subject, calculates the student's score and keeps a record of activity so when they log on again they can pick up where they left off.

It's too early to say whether the system lives up to its claims to raise pupils' grades if they spend sufficient time using it, says Alan Parkinson, head of geography at the school. "But the most valuable aspect of Sam Learning is the feedback it gives, plus students can keep track of what they have done. We use BBC Bitesize, which is also good, but it doesn't keep track of individual progress."

Paul Shepherd, head of KS4 maths at Guilsborough school, Northants, also believes swift feedback plays an important part in encouraging students to knuckle down to revision. He has used Test Centre from Learnpremium, the Guardian's website for schools, which provides online learning materials by subscription, to help his students outside lessons.

"We set up some online tests for the most able students, which they could use for revising by logging on from home. Each test takes around two-and-a-half minutes and they have up to 15 to choose from. They get feedback after each test, including a worked-out answer and a link to a website where there is a lesson on that topic."

A lot depends on how computer literate the kids are, he says. "But the ones who liked the task did so because, although they didn't have a teacher present to mark their work, they were still able to get feedback.

"It's hard to say whether it has contributed to improvement but, as a motivational tool, it's quite good for the time when children aren't in school because it allows them to assess their progress. They can do a test, then do it again and see the difference."

At Hylands school, a specialist science college in Chelmsford, pupils have access to Letts online revision resources that the school has bought with e-learning credits and made available via a virtual learning environment.

It offers a good range of resources to match the QCA modules but its main use is as a complement to revision that the students do in school, rather than as a primary source, according to science teacher Terry Candler. He uses it mainly at GCSE and KS3.

"The children access the materials using a password but, as the teacher, I can go in and see what they have selected and look at their work. After each module there's a self-assessment section with a series of tests on, for example, chemical reactions, so the children can see how well they have done and where their errors were."

He adds that it's been especially useful in helping children who are off school in hospital for long periods who would otherwise find it hard to catch up.

This month sees another addition to the range of online revision resources offered by the hugely popular - and free - BBC Bitesize. RU Revising? is a new game aimed at foundation science students in years 10 and 11. The player has to fool 10 different characters, played by actors, into believing he/she is revising by answering science questions.

The combination of Flash animation and interactivity should enhance its appeal to reluctant revisers, says John Millner, editor of the BBC's Schools Online service.

"We've tested it with teachers and we think it's a slick way of almost tricking kids into learning who might usually find revision really hard to stomach."


BBC Bitesize:



Sam Learning: