Title: GCSE Success Essentials Study Skill
Author: James Lee     
Publisher: Letts
ISDN  1-84315-473-0

This is a book for GCSE students but one which also has considerable interest for teachers, learning support staff, parents and anyone interested in helping youngsters organise and prepare themselves for successful study at KS4.

At its most direct level the book provides clear guidance and instruction on how to work and revise effectively for GCSE. In pursuit of this objective, it is written and presented in a style which is accessible to young people. It is colourful, visually engaging and organised with the needs of GCSE students in mind. Following a clear introduction to the aims and format of the book, the text proceeds to do exactly what it claims and guides the student through time management strategies; analytical reading and note-taking strategies; project work; subject-specific revision strategies and examination technique. A clear message to emerge from the text is the need for students to be active and independent learners. As such, the promotion of study skills to encourage meaning-making, joined-up understanding and personal responsibility for learning is to the fore. Mnemonics, symbolisation, analytical reading, study mapping and visualisation techniques are all appropriately introduced in such a way as to encourage individual ownership of the material as it relates to courses being studied.

Given this, the book may confidently be given to students as a self-help guide to effective study skills and independent revision techniques. Schools seeking to promote greater independence and more active learning would certainly see the positive impact of making the book widely available to their Y10 and Y11 cohorts as a handbook promoting effective study. More profoundly, still, however, the book may also be used as the basis of study skills programmes taught in schools and used by teachers to steer the young people in their charge towards the generic competencies which underlie either GCSE work in general or towards particular aspects of subject-specific study. As such, GCSE Success Essentials: Study Skills offers a clear and practical support for schools seeking to promote greater personalisation through professionally structured learning support programmes.