Actually, this time, it’s true. It doesn’t. I’m not going to pretend I have some holy grail for you that turns your teen’s maths revision into a smooth ride. And that’s why you SHOULD keep reading.

There are a gazillion revision guides, tips, blog posts, and some probably also turned into TikTok dances or whatnot (I do not have a TT, though, so I can’t fact-check that one… 👀)

And that leads me to a rather bold assumption: you might be sick of browsing through and trying yet another revision routine. Am I right or am I right?

Well, for those who are at their wits' end with tackling maths revision the right way, I have good news: it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Revision, like learning, is part of education. And I’ve noticed some interesting things about education over the two decades I’ve been working with learners and helping them with maths. Many of them are obvious, while just as many are hidden at first sight. So I may say things here which might make you go “duh!” as well as “wait, what?”

While you read further, just pick the bits that work for you and use them well.

First: TWO steps when doing ANY maths revision

Once you learn something, you move on to revision. Not always immediately, but that’s the general consensus. Of course. We can’t revise what we haven’t learnt yet (I’ll get to that in a little bit).

So, when you are actually revising maths, there are always TWO steps to get you through — no more, no less.

When you look at a maths question, you need to know: What to do and how to do it.

There are four scenarios that may happen:

The first option is the rainbows and unicorns: You look at a maths problem and identify which maths thinking hat to put on. Then you put that hat on, solve that maths question — and it’s correct. Hooray! 🌈🦄 

And if a typo or a little error happened due to lack of focus, but you’re aware of what happened, recognise that mistake, and are able to fix it — cool. This topic seems good to go in the “ok” pile. But do get back to it sometimes, of course, just for a refresher.

The second option might look like this: Say, there’s a word problem, and you don’t recognise that it’s about a particular topic — perhaps trigonometry. But once you get past that step, you can actually solve the trigonometric problem (which goes more or less ok-ish). That means you have the mechanism knowledge; you just need to get past the recognition. And this tends to be tricky, especially when it comes to complex and applied maths word problems.

If you get stuck on this part, the best way forward is to keep working through a variety of problems to learn how to recognise which maths thinking hat you need to put on for various problems you’re solving. The key here is the variety. And it’s also important to not get stuck thinking too long about what to do, when otherwise you might be able to go through the “how to do it” part. Once you become better at identifying various maths problems and what they are about (without having to think about it TOO long), it means you’re moving past this particular hurdle, and you’re on your way to rainbows and unicorns (see above).

On the other hand, the third option might be this one: You might recognise what you’re supposed to do with the given maths problem, but you don’t know or remember how to solve it. Or perhaps you tried but got it wrong. And unless your error was caused “just” by a typo, this tells you that you’re missing the second part: the “how to do it”. So that gives you a clear signal on what you may need to revise, refresh or relearn. It’s worth keeping a mental note (or even better — an actual note in your maths diary… don’t tell me you don’t have a maths diary…? 😯) about what caused you the trouble. Is it a formula you can’t remember? Or a process you still don’t seem to understand very well? Something you’re not confident enough to apply yet? This helps you figure out what to focus on when you grab the textbook, video, or whichever learning resources you prefer, then get back to the learning part to apply your knowledge and move through your revision.

And there’s also the fourth option: You’re not sure what to do with the maths problem, and even after someone or something helps you identify what maths thinking hat to put on to solve it, you still can’t do it. Basically, you don’t have THAT maths thinking hat in your brain wardrobe yet. We don’t usually try to revise something we haven’t learnt yet, but if you’re revising, for example, with a past paper, this can happen very often. Therefore, when you identify a topic you haven’t even learnt yet, simply skip that bit and put it in the “to learn” pile for later.

As I said earlier, you don’t revise what you don’t know. You learn that first (duh! 😄)

Every maths problem you have in your revision stack should fall into one of these categories, and each category needs a different approach (as I described above). Now, there are different revision routines out there (that’s the bit you likely researched so much you’re already sick of it), and each might offer different ways of tackling topics once you categorise them. This is the bit where you choose: how and when you tackle things, in which order and intensity, etc.

Sounds quite simple so far, right?

But that’s not the whole maths revision witchcraft unveiled. Not yet. There’s WAY more — buckle up.

Maths revision — what you know, what you don’t know, and what you don’t know that you don’t know 😵‍💫

I’ll throw more categories at you — is that ok?

When we go deeper into revision, there are three categories that pretty much mirror the Three Learning Layers — have you read The Story yet? If so, this will sound familiar.

What you know is what you've tried already and saw work for your teen — hooray, keep that! Your own research about revision brought some results. Perhaps not 100% — that’s why you’re here and reading (yet another) blog post about maths revision… but something is working. Or maybe at least you know what isn’t working. That’s also valuable.

For example, having frequent breaks might work for some (or many), but it doesn’t work for me, personally. I thrive when I can have uninterrupted long hours of full focus, be it for learning or revision when I was a student, or for work, like when I’m writing a blog post. I know what works for me and what doesn’t, so when I can, I choose what feels right.

What you don’t know is what prompts you to go and search for more revision guides. So, perhaps you don’t know how to revise for exam preparation. Or how to revise for a general “moving forward” flow, so you don’t feel like you have to keep starting over (I wrote a blog post about that just the other week, btw [/blog/start-september-fresh-without-starting-over]). There’s A TON of tips and ideas out there about all sorts of revision (including those TikTok dances… presumably). And when you find something that you deem worth trying, great, go for it.

But even with a lot of research, asking for help with revision, searching all over the internet and even in libraries, reading books from experts, and asking friends what worked for them (yeah, the internet alone is not almighty)... maths revision might still not be clicking for your teen.

And that’s because there are also things you don’t know that you don’t know. So you don’t even look for them.

This is the part where I’m NOT going to give you a list of “the best maths revision tips” (you can google a million and one of those), or sneakily try to convince you that MY maths revision guide or program is THE best thing for your teen. I don’t do sneaky; you probably already know that anyway — I’d like you to immerse yourself in the topic while asking the right questions.

The right questions lead you to a search that will actually be helpful.

The questions you should be asking are not “what are the best maths revision tips?”, but rather:

“Who is my teen as a learner?”

“What is their motivation to learn (and therefore revise)?”

“Is the will to revise coming from them, or is it being pushed upon them?”

That’s not an exhaustive list, but can you see the pattern? If you focus on the individual, their mindset and motivations, that’ll give you the answers. And you, as their trusted adult, are in the BEST position to get to the bottom of it.

If you read The Story, you’ll probably be a bit more familiar with what I’m going to tell you now, which is: Learning and revision are connected parts of education, and as such, revision, too, has that third layer to it.

And that’s what I want you to take from this article today. I won’t start another long expansion of my philosophical approach to education here. This is what The Story is about, so that’s why I mentioned it above and linked it for your convenience. Go read it — it’s worth it.

But I know… not everyone is ready to roll up their sleeves just yet. You might be looking for a quick fix. No judgement. I know time is a real and very scarce currency for most people. So, if you came here for the perfect maths revision advice… then read a bit further. I might have something for you in that department.

The perfect maths revision doesn’t exi–

Now, you might be asking, “Veronika, do YOU have a maths revision guide? Or a maths revision program? Something… anything?”

Yes, I do, of course. How could I not have one? Students ask me all the time, so I’ve put together the advice I often give them. But, of course, not even my guide can be tailored to your young learner, who is an individual. Every learner is an individual, which is why I tend to talk more about revision with my students when we meet in lessons; the revision guide is just a skeleton, something to roughly follow, but it also helps you to think about the right questions to ask. And as I said earlier, asking the right questions leads you to the right solution — such as creating the perfect maths revision routine for your teen.

So I stand by my word: a perfect maths revision doesn’t exist; you have to build it. The best maths revision must click with the learner. They also need the right mindset and motivation (I talked about that above). My guide can help you; it’s available to my email subscribers for free in the Subscriber Hub.

But on top of your efforts to create the right revision routine for your teen, you can get extra help, of course. 

There’s Maths Bingo for revising secondary maths. You can try it; I livestream it for free (or, at the time of writing this, I’m PLANNING to livestream it once I hit a certain number of YouTube subscribers).

Will it work for your teen? I can’t say — even Maths Bingo isn’t almighty. But it’s fun, it’s meant to build some of the right habits and to motivate learners to keep going, so it’s a good start… And it’s free. So I think it’s certainly worth giving it a go. See how it fits in your own maths revision stack and routine.

>> Curious enough? Want to try something different? Maths Bingo awaits! <<

Now, off you go — with plenty of food for thought for today, I hope — and start working towards those maths revision rainbows and unicorns 🌈🦄