Holiday Revision Tips for GCSE and A-Level Students

Why holiday revision matters (without ruining your break)

For most students, the holidays are a chance to relax, unwind and spend more time doing the things you enjoy. But if you’ve got GCSE or A-level exams in 2026, mocks waiting for you in January, or even both, it might not feel that simple. It can be hard to know how much to switch off, when to work, and how to balance seeing friends and family with revision. This blog is full of holiday revision tips for GCSE and A-level students, to help you plan the holidays so you can get some work done, stay feeling productive, and still use this time to properly recharge, so you go back in the new year with more energy and ready to focus.

Know what you’re working towards

Look through your exam timetable so you know exactly how long you’ve got before each exam. Students are often shocked by how soon after the Christmas holidays some exams are, so avoid that surprise by planning ahead. Write all your GCSE and A-level exam dates, plus any coursework deadlines, into your diary so you know which subjects come first and what needs prioritising.

Next, work out your strengths and the topics you’re least confident with. A simple RAG (Red, Amber, Green) chart works really well for this:

• Red – really worried / don’t understand

• Amber – okay, but need more practice

• Green – feel confident

  
  

If you’ve already had mock exams before the holidays, then you should have covered a lot of the content. Keep it fresh with past paper questions and use your mock feedback to fill any gaps and fix common mistakes. If your mocks are after the holidays, prioritise learning the content fully, followed by exam-style questions and timed practice.

Build a flexible holiday revision timetable

You’ve probably heard the phrase “fail to plan, plan to fail” - and that is exactly the case here. You want to go into the holidays with a solid plan for your revision timetable, so that you have some structure and know what you need to do each day. So sit down for an hour or so, and plan out your holiday revision timetable. Build out a timetable, from your waking time, to when you would typically wind down for the day, and plan meticulously daily.

• Start with your non-negotiables 

Start with filling out the times you can’t revise - it’s important to block these out initially so you can see how much time you realistically can dedicate to working. These can be family events, plans with friends and even times you want to dedicate to just resting! Remember not to be too generous; you want to block out a reasonable amount of time for the events that really matter - not everything you can think of that you’d like to do during the holidays!

• Choose realistic revision hours

For most people, 3-5 hours of focused, structured revision works well. Remember this is just a guide - if you’re doing 4 A-levels instead of the common 3, then add an extra 1-2 hours per day for the additional subject. 

• Are you a morning or evening reviser?

For many people, starting earlier and finishing earlier works best for them, as they get it out of the way. If that’s you, try to start at the same time you’d start school so you can get this out of the way early. It might seem like it’s an early start, but once you factor in that you don’t have to travel or get ready for school, you still get a nice lie in that way! 

If you prefer to revise later in the evening, that’s fine too! Just remember, often it can be harder to motivate yourself after a long busy day, so you need to do this at a time when your energy levels aren’t too low. You can also break it up - some days, you might have things at midday. On these days, start with an hour or two of work, then take a break and get back to it in the evening. 

• Be prepared to adapt

Be prepared to change - if you’ve scheduled evenings in every day and realise you keep putting this off when it gets to 5 pm, or you keep snoozing your alarm and can’t get to your desk for 9 am, then be prepared to change and tailor your timetable! It’s really important to take accountability during this time and manage your time with what works best for you, so be prepared to change the timetable if you need to; remember, the timetable is a tool to help you reach your goals, not a punishment!

How many hours should you revise each day?

It’s much more effective to focus on understanding, rather than time spent revising. 3 hours of solid, useful revision with good recall of facts is much better than 8 hours of revision with no actual recall and knowledge of the content. If you are mid-GCSEs or doing AS exams, and planning your GCSE revision over the holidays, 2–4 hours a day should be enough most days. However, if you’re sitting GCSEs and A-levels in 2026, aim for 4–5 hours a day in good blocks and with rest days and breaks. To make best use of your time, test your active recall by using flashcards with questions and answers on them, blurting everything you’ve just read immediately after to see how much you recall, and doing a set of exam questions on each topic to ensure you can apply the knowledge in exam conditions. These ideas work whether you’re revising independently or getting support from GCSE and A-level tuition.

Give yourself 30 minutes or so after your revision block to unwind before getting onto other plans if possible. It can seem like a good idea to schedule things in back-to-back, especially if you’re busy and you want to get as much in as possible. But things don’t always go to plan, and on some days revision will just feel slower and the content harder to understand. So plan ahead and give yourself a short buffer to allow for those days when you need an extra 15 minutes to read over the content.

Study techniques that work well over the holidays

The Pomodoro Technique for holiday revision

The idea is that you need to break down the revision into small chunks – if you can’t focus for long, try 25 minutes of work and a 5 minute break. After 3–4 revision blocks, take a 20–30 minute break. If you have trickier content to get through, try 30/5 or 35/5. This is ideal for new content, mixed questions and blurting, and works really well for GCSE revision over the holidays and A-level revision when you’re short on time. For heavier tasks like long calculations and full exam-style questions, aim for 40/20. This might not work for everyone, but it’s particularly useful for those topics you feel very unsure and lost about. Do a maximum of 2–3 blocks of these per day.

You can also mix and match the above – for example, if you start off motivated and ready to learn, start the day with a 40/20 block on a very tricky subject that you’re very unsure of. Then do 2 × 30/5 blocks for topics you’re more confident on but need some extra practice on. Take an hour-long break and finish off with 2 × 25/5 blocks on the easier topics, going through flashcards or just answering some short exam-style questions. This kind of structure is great if you’re trying to fit GCSE and A-level tuition or independent study around a busy holiday schedule.

Great if you:

• forget to take breaks

• feel very overwhelmed by the thought of revising for extended periods of time

  
  

The 3-Tier Block Method (match your time to difficulty)

Tier 1 (15–20 mins, easy) Tier 2 (30–35 mins, moderate) Tier 3 (45–50 mins, hard)

Always 5–10 minutes’ break afterwards.

Great if you:

• Have a very busy day and can’t fit in a lot of revision

• Have a range of topics of different difficulty levels to study

• Want to take a break from hard revision but still want to do some work

  
  

You can mix and match – choose one hard task, one medium and one easy per day on days with lots of other commitments. This works nicely if you’re building a flexible holiday study timetable for GCSEs and A-levels and don’t want every day to look the same.

The Exam Question Sandwich

Start with 5–10 minutes of quickly reviewing a topic, followed by 15–20 minutes on exam questions and finally, 10 minutes marking and improving answers

Great if you:

• Have exams coming up in the New Year and need to focus on exam technique for GCSEs and A-levels

• Lose silly marks in questions due to answering questions incompletely

• Feel overwhelmed at the idea of doing a whole past paper and want to work up towards itKeep answering certain topic questions incorrectly

  
  

This technique is especially useful if you’re using GCSE or A-level tuition sessions to go through exam questions, as you can bring your “improved” answers back to a tutor or teacher to check and refine further.

Holiday Revision - key takeaways  

To conclude, you want a solid, achievable plan going into the holidays, tailored around your exam timetable and workload. It’s completely normal, when you have important GCSE and A-level exams in 2026, to feel guilty for taking time off, to feel behind, or to compare the amount of work you’re doing to your friends – but this isn’t helpful, and it will affect you more in the long run. Instead, focus on the small wins and the work you have managed to do, as well as the importance of actually taking a break, because that’s also a win! Remember, your teachers and tutors are there to help, so if you need to and they’re available, reach out for support. You will also inevitably have days that don’t go to plan or unexpected events that crop up. Don’t let these throw you off. Instead, focus on when you can get back on track and plan to start with a few key tasks. You don’t need to strive for perfection; something is always better than nothing, and a bad day won’t ruin your efforts, so adjust accordingly and move on.

If you’re struggling with workload or would like support with your GCSE or A-level’s, get in touch to book a free introductory session!