Mock Season
Mock Revision Planner
Plan mocks by topic, not by specification. Enter what your class has actually covered and what is genuinely secure. You get a weekly session split — and, more usefully, an honest answer about whether the plan fits at all.
Mock dates are set by your school, not by an exam board, so there is no national date to look up. Enter the date from your school's calendar.
This does not fit
4 full weeks left · 26 topics to secure · 6.5 a week needed against 6 sessions
There is more to secure than there are sessions to secure it in. Cut deliberately: take the subjects with the largest gaps and the highest weighting, and accept that the rest will be revised after the mocks rather than before. A shorter plan you finish beats a full one you abandon in week three.
Where the sessions go
Ordered by how much is outstanding, worst first.
| Subject | Topics left | Sessions a week |
|---|---|---|
| Maths | 12 | 3 |
| History | 10 | 2 |
| Biology | 4 | 1 |
Want this plan, plus what to do in each session?
We will email your session split with a one-page guide to what a productive revision session actually looks like. Add a parent or guardian for a copy.
We never sell your details, and we do not send marketing to students.
A planner that never says no is not helping
Most revision planners will take any workload and any number of weeks and hand back a tidy grid. That is the failure mode: an impossible plan laundered into something printable, which the student abandons in week three and then feels bad about.
This one does the arithmetic out loud. Topics still to secure, divided by weeks left, against sessions available. If that rate is above your capacity it says so and tells you to cut, and if it is exactly at capacity it says tight rather than fine — because a plan with no slack fails on the first bad week.
Mocks only cover what you have been taught
This is why the planner asks for topics rather than reading a specification. Revising content your class has not reached is wasted effort in December, and the number that decides your mock is how many taught topics are still not secure. Secure means you could answer a question on it today — not that you have seen it, and not that you have highlighted it.
In the summer the whole specification is in scope and a date-driven plan is the right shape instead. That is the revision timetable generator, and the exam countdown tells you how many weeks you have to work with.
A bad mock is information
Mock results matter for predicted grades, setting decisions and any future special consideration claim. They do not determine the final grade, and a December mock sat on half-taught content was never going to. The value is diagnostic: it names the topics to fix while there is still a whole term to fix them in.
Once the results are back, run the marks through the grade calculator to see which boundary you are actually near.
Frequently asked questions
When are GCSE and A level mocks?
Mocks are set by your school, not by an exam board, so there is no national date. The most common pattern is a block in late November or the first two weeks of December, and a second block in late February or early March. Some schools run one set only. Your school's own calendar is the only authority — this planner asks you for the date rather than assuming one.
How is revising for mocks different from revising for the real thing?
Mocks only cover what you have been taught. That is why this planner works from topics rather than from a full specification: revising content your class has not reached yet is wasted effort, and the number that matters is how many taught topics are still not secure. In the summer the whole specification is in scope and a date-driven timetable is the right shape.
How many weeks before mocks should I start?
Four to six weeks is normal and usually enough, because the content is fresh and the scope is narrower. What decides it is not the calendar but the arithmetic — how many topics are outstanding against how many revision sessions you genuinely have. The planner does that sum and will tell you when the answer does not fit.
What if the plan says my revision does not fit?
Cut it, deliberately and now. Take the subjects with the biggest gaps and the heaviest weighting and accept that the rest gets revised after the mocks rather than before. A shorter plan you finish beats a complete one abandoned in week three, and mocks are diagnostic — finding out in December which topics are weak is the point of them.
Do mock results matter?
They matter for three things: predicted grades on a sixth form or UCAS application, setting decisions, and the evidence a school would use if you ever needed special consideration. They do not determine your final grade. Treat a bad mock as information about which topics to fix rather than as a forecast.
How long should a revision session be?
Long enough to finish a topic and answer a question on it — usually 40 to 50 minutes with a short break. Sessions shorter than about half an hour rarely get past reading, and sessions past an hour without a break lose most of their value. Count sessions rather than hours when you plan; it is the honest unit.
More to cover than weeks to cover it?
That is exactly what a tutor is for — deciding what to cut and securing the topics that carry the most marks. Book a free trial session.
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