Mock exams don’t have a national date. Every school sets its own, and in a survey of English schools the large majority start Year 11 mocks in November, with a scattering in October, December and January. Ask your head of year for your dates, because everything below hangs off them.
Assume November. That gives you roughly six weeks, which is enough to revise properly and not enough to leave until half term.
Quick answer
– Most schools run Year 11 mocks in November, so a six-week plan starting now is comfortable.
– Rate every topic red, amber or green, and give the reds your blocks first.
– A timetable you can follow on a bad week beats a beautiful one you follow for two days.
Why most revision timetables fail
Rewriting your revision timetable is procrastination with good handwriting.
They’re too detailed, too optimistic, and colour-coded to death.
The classic version is a grid with every hour from 9am to 9pm filled in, different colour per subject, made on a Sunday afternoon. It survives until Tuesday, when football training and a bad mood remove two blocks, and then the whole thing gets abandoned because it’s already wrong.
A timetable you can follow on a bad week beats a beautiful one you follow for two days.
Build it in four steps
1. List what’s actually being examined
Not subjects. Topics. Get the specification or the topic list from each teacher and write out everything that could come up. Ten subjects with eight topics each is eighty items, and seeing that number is the point — it tells you that “revise science” was never a plan.
2. Rate each topic red, amber or green
Red means you couldn’t answer a question on it today. Amber means you’d get some marks. Green means you’re solid.
Be honest, because this is what decides where your hours go. Most people’s instinct is to revise the green topics, which is comfortable and useless.
3. Block out your real week
Start from what’s fixed: school, sleep, travel, your job, training, the things you’re not giving up. What’s left is your revision time, and it’s usually less than you assumed.
Two hours on a school night is a lot. Three or four on a weekend day, with breaks, is realistic. Anything above that is a fantasy you’ll use as a stick to beat yourself with.
4. Fill the blocks with red topics first
One topic per block, named. “Biology: transport in plants” not “biology”. Vague blocks turn into rereading, and rereading is the least effective thing you can do with an hour.
Then protect one evening and one full day a week with nothing in them.
What to actually do inside a block
The timetable only decides when. This decides whether it works.
- Past paper questions, closed book. Then mark them against the mark scheme. Exam boards publish both, free, and mark schemes tell you exactly what earns marks.
- Blurting. Write everything you can remember about a topic on a blank page, then check your notes and add what you missed in a different colour. Brutal, fast, effective.
- Flashcards, tested properly. Not made prettily. Made quickly, then used until you get them right without hesitating.
- Explain it out loud. To a person, a wall, or the dog. Fluency in your head is not the same as fluency out of your mouth.
What doesn’t work: highlighting, copying notes out neatly, watching revision videos passively, and making another timetable.
| Block length | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| 25 minutes | Flashcards, quick recall, starting when you don’t want to | Too short for essay practice |
| 45–60 minutes | Past paper questions, blurting, working through a topic | Needs a real break after |
| 90 minutes | Full past papers, essay subjects under timed conditions | Only once or twice a day |
A six-week shape
Exam boards publish past papers and mark schemes free — AQA’s dates and timetables page is the place to start for your specification, and JCQ lists the key dates for the summer series. If your mocks fall after half term, our half-term revision plan covers how to use that week without writing off the whole break.
Weeks 1–2: red topics only, every subject, a first pass with active recall.
Weeks 3–4: past paper questions by topic, marked against the mark scheme. Reds that are now ambers come off the priority list, and new ones go on.
Week 5: full papers, timed, handwritten. Half term is in here for most schools, which makes it the single most useful week available — our guide to the October half-term revision plan covers how to use it without losing the whole break.
Week 6: light review, past paper mistakes, sleep.
Keeping it alive
Put the blocks in a planner that follows you around rather than on a wall at home. MyStudyLife holds your school timetable and your revision blocks in the same place, so a free period on Thursday shows up as a free period rather than a surprise, and reminders nudge you before a block instead of after it.
Then review it once a week. Ten minutes on a Sunday, moving what didn’t happen, is what separates a timetable from a document.
Adapting it when the week goes wrong
Every revision timetable meets a week where nothing planned happens. The difference between one that survives and one that doesn’t is what you do on the Wednesday you missed two blocks.
The rule: don’t reschedule, re-choose. Look at the remaining blocks in the week and put the most important missed topic into the next one. Everything else falls off. Trying to catch up on all four missed blocks by Sunday is how people abandon the whole plan.
Build the slack in from the start — one empty evening and one empty day a week — and a bad Wednesday costs you nothing at all.
For parents
The useful interventions are structural rather than motivational: know the mock dates, protect a quiet space, keep the household calendar clear in the exam weeks, and ask what they’re working on today rather than whether they’ve revised. The second question reliably gets a yes and tells you nothing.
If revision genuinely isn’t happening, the most productive conversation is about the first block of the day rather than the whole plan. Starting is the part that fails.
In short
List topics rather than subjects, rate them honestly, block out the week you actually have, and fill it with reds. Then protect one evening and one day. Inside the blocks: past papers, blurting and flashcards — never highlighting. Our study techniques guide has the detail on each method.
FAQ
When do Year 11 mocks usually happen?
Most English schools run them in November, with some in October, December or January, and a second round in spring for some. Your school’s calendar is the only reliable source.
How many hours a day should I revise for mocks?
Two hours on a school day and three to four on a weekend day, in blocks, is a realistic target for most students. Consistency beats heroics.
How far in advance should I start revising for mocks?
Six weeks is comfortable for mocks. Four is workable. Two means choosing topics rather than covering everything.
Should I revise every subject equally?
No. Weight by two things: how weak you are and how many marks it’s worth. Your red topics in your hardest subjects get the most time.
Do mock results matter?
They inform predicted grades, set sets and tiers in some schools, and are used as evidence if anything goes wrong in the summer. They also tell you what you don’t know while there’s still time to fix it, which is the real point.
What’s the best revision timetable app?
Any that you’ll open daily. MyStudyLife is free and keeps timetable, homework and revision blocks together; a paper planner works too, as long as it lives in your bag rather than on a wall.
