Research School Network: Don’t Just Give Revision Resources – Teach Students How to Use Them A whole-school approach to embedding evidence-based study skills

I’m a Chemistry teacher in a secondary school in Norwich, and our department prides itself on the quality of the resources we give our KS4 students. For every topic, students receive carefully designed, school-produced booklets, which include knowledge organisers, practice questions, mark schemes, exemplar exam responses, glossaries… the works! (Thanks to our brilliant Head of Department, who is the absolute machine behind them all.)

We hand these booklets out at the start of each topic, and show students what’s inside. They take them home, ready (in theory) to support their independent study.

And yet, recently, I received an email from a parent asking if I could recommend some practice questions their child could use.

It gave me pause for thought.

Because the reality is this:

The Illusion of Access

There’s a subtle trap here: as teachers, we can mistake access for understanding.

Students may have the booklet, but that doesn’t mean they know:

• Where to start
• How to use each section
• When to revisit it
• How it fits into their study routine

In a busy school day, students are exposed to a constant stream of new information, strategies and materials. Without structured guidance, it’s no surprise that even excellent resources can quietly fade into the background.

This is reflected in EEF’s guidance report on metacognition and self-regulated learning, which emphasises that students need to be explicitly taught how to organise and manage their independent study.

A Small Shift, A Big Difference

Prompted by the parent’s email, I used ten minutes of my next year 10 lesson to walk students through their latest booklet, giving a deliberate, structured explanation of what each section is for, how to use it effectively, when to revisit it, and how it might fit into a revision routine.

It was a small investment of time, but an important one, and I’m going to make sure I do this again in the future.

Knowing What Works Isn’t Enough

We are fortunate to have a strong evidence base for learning. For example, the EEF’s review of cognitive science approaches in the classroom highlights several approaches that support learning:

• Spaced practice
• Interleaving
• Retrieval practice
• Managing cognitive load
• Working with schemas
• Multimedia learning (including dual coding)
• Embodied learning

We also know, from research synthesised by John Dunlosky¹, that some revision strategies are far more effective than others.

The Problem with Vague Advice

Take something as seemingly straightforward as self-testing. Without careful explanation, students are left with questions like:

• Do I use flashcards?
• Should I make them or buy them?
• How exactly do I use them?
• Is there any other way I can do it?
• Why is this better than just re-reading my notes?

What sounds like clear guidance to us can feel vague and inaccessible to students.

From Strategy to Practice

We’ve been mulling this over recently, and to help bridge the gap between what we know and what students do, we’ve developed a simple, two-sided handout outlining our top six revision strategies.

For each one, we include:

• What it is
• How to do it
• How to ​‘power it up’
• Why it works

But crucially, we understand that it’s not enough to just stick it on our school website or even hand it out to each individual student. We know we will have to talk it through with students (for example in a dedicated assembly during the mock exam preparation period) and we will need to encourage teachers to model it with real subject content.

A Whole-School Responsibility

Supporting students to revise effectively cannot sit with one teacher, one subject, or one isolated lesson. It requires a coherent, whole-school approach. That means:

• Embedding high-quality resources within the curriculum
• Modelling their use explicitly in lessons
• Maintaining consistency across subjects
• Applying strategies through a subject-specific lens

Again, the Education Endowment Foundation is clear: metacognitive strategies, including study skills, are most effective when taught within specific domains, not as generic add-ons.

Teaching Independent Learning Explicitly

At our school, we also teach study skills through the PSHE curriculum in Years 10 and 11.

Students learn:

• How to revise effectively
• How to plan their time
• How to track their revision in the lead-up to mocks

But we understand that even this is not enough on its own. Revision is a habit, built over time, through repeated modelling and practice.

What This Means in Practice

If we want students to revise effectively, we need to:

• Teach revision strategies explicitly, not assume students will pick them up
• Explain the how, when and why, not just the what
• Model their use within subjects, not in isolation
• Provide high-quality resources—and show students how to use them
• Revisit and reinforce regularly, not just once

Final Thought

Giving students great resources is a strong start — but it’s only the start.

If we want those resources to have real impact, we must go further: teaching, modelling and revisiting how to use them until effective study becomes second nature.

Because in the end, it’s not what we give students that matters most — it’s what they are able to do with it.

Dr Niki Kaiser is a Chemistry teacher, Assistant Headteacher and Director of Norfolk Research School.
With particular thanks to: Tom Stevens, Alex Savage and Chris Moore, Notre Dame High School, Norwich.

Want to know more? Join Niki on 4 June for a free webinar looking at what the evidence says about effective study skills, and examine how this might be systematically embedded within schools, departments and classrooms using some practical examples from a local secondary school.

¹Dunlosky J, Rawson K and Marsh E (2013) Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Association for Psychological Science 14(1): 4 – 58.