If you or your child have recently received GCSE grades and they don’t match your child’s expectations, it can be disheartening. But with the chance to resit, you can still boost your grade.

If you’re unsure of how to proceed or how to make the most of your resit opportunity, we’ve got everything you need to know about resitting your GCSEs.

Should I resit my GCSEs?

It can be a tough choice to decide whether or not to resit your GCSEs. If you still meet all the requirements to get on your chosen college course or apprenticeship scheme you might choose to forge ahead without resitting. But if you’re having to rethink plans, resits can help you still meet your ambitions with just a year’s delay.

Even if you do have the grades to progress with your plans, you might still decide to resit your GCSEs and many colleges will strongly encourage this, especially if you didn’t attain a grade that matches your abilities in English and maths. While the government has scrapped a previous policy that meant all pupils who had a grade D or below at GCSE in maths and English had to resit, it’s still strongly advised that you do. Many career and further education opportunities will expect a certain level to be achieved in these core subjects and choosing not to resit can harm your options in the future.

When should I resit my GCSEs?

Under the new GCSE system, you won’t be able to resit your exam halfway through the school year in January as you could in the past. Instead, you will resit exams the following June, a year after your original exam, giving you plenty of time to prepare.

The exception to this is if you’re resitting your maths or English exams. For these subjects, you will have the option to resit in November, perfect if you were a few marks short and know that you could have performed much better on exam day.

How can I improve my original GCSE mark?

Improving your original GCSE mark means you’ll have to put the time and effort into preparing for your exam. But the good news is that it can defiantly be done. Practice exam papers can be key to unlocking your potential and allowing you to achieve the mark that you’ve been after. With the right approach, practice papers can be an invaluable resource.

They can:

  • Develop your exam technique
  • Boost confidence in your abilities
  • Determine the topics that require further revision
  • Identify where marks are rewarded
  • Put you at ease on exam day

But how do you use practice papers to get the most out of them? Doing practice paper after practice paper isn’t going to help you on its own. Without taking the right steps, you could be making the same mistakes on every paper without realising or improving.

To move forward you need to understand where you’re dropping marks. This is an area that School Exams excels in, providing a cost effective and efficient alternative to expensive tutors. With a range of tools at your disposal you’ll not only be able to get comfortable completing exam questions to strict timings but you’ll be able to see where you’re making mistakes and be given a step-by-step guide for answering questions.

Utilising the skills and knowledge of GCSE teachers, our tutorials, animated videos, and mark explanations, you’ll be able to get the most out of every practice paper that you complete.