SORT

There are four stages to effectively revise. This strategy is called SORT and will help you to memorise and recall key information:

Select

Select your revision materials by topic/subtopic. Traffic light your PLC sheets to identify areas of weakness or gaps (Red/Amber) that need to be prioritised.

Strategies:

How to use your PLC
How to schedule your home learning and stick to it!
How to select the correct knowledge to study

Organise

Organise and condense any class notes, revision guides and revision.

Strategies:

Recall

Use active recall and spaced repetition to memorise the knowledge until you can recall the Information eg. Look, cover, write, blurt it or self-testing

This will be part of the expectation of home learning activities set – you need to actively memorise key knowledge and skills

Test

Use low stakes online tests/quizzes and answer high stakes past paper/sample questions to check and apply knowledge and understanding

This will be done as part of every home learning activity and as part of retrieval starters in lessons.

Low stakes
Self-quizzing
Quiz each other
Online quizzes
High stakes
Exam style questions

How to use SORT

Select

When you revise for a specific topic use your knowledge organiser, revision guide, website tec to select the key knowledge you need to learn.

Use the daily planner on page 10 to identify all the times when you will complete your home learning and when you will complete independent revision.
RAG each of the PLCs so you identify your RED topics - the ones that you are unsure of or you do not fully understand.
Write your RED topics into your daily planner for when you will revisit that subject.

Organise

Organise the knowledge that you have selected using a range of strategies:

Flashcards
Mindmaps
Cornell Notes
Revision Clocks

Recall

Once you have summarised the knowledge, you need to actively memorise it. This is the most important part of the revision process!
You could use any of the following strategies to help:

Lietner System
Blurt It
Look, say, cover, write, test

Test

The last step in revision is to be confident that you can recall and retrieve the knowledge. To do this you need to test yourself. Quick and simple ways are to ask someone else to quiz you on the knowledge or to complete an online quiz. You can also answer past exam questions.

If you can not confidently recall the knowledge you will need to repeat step 3.