For parents & carers
How do I help my child get better GCSE grades?
You cannot revise for them, and hovering over every session usually makes grades worse. What moves a grade is regular question practice on weak topics, which you can support with a routine, a quiet slot, and a calm read of progress rather than a nightly interrogation. If one subject is genuinely stuck, that is the case for a tutor or a practice tool. A new website for every subject is how families collect unused logins.
Last updated 19 August 2026 · Written and fact-checked by the GCSEwiz team
The job that is actually yours
The grade is built in sessions you will mostly not watch: questions attempted, marked, tried again. Your leverage is the conditions around those sessions. A predictable slot in the week, a phone in another room by agreement, food that happened, sleep that is protected, and a household that treats rest as part of the method. That is the parent half of a grade improvement. The content half belongs to them and their teachers.
Pick the grade that opens a door
Better grades everywhere is not a plan. Ask which subject’s next grade changes something: a sixth-form entry requirement, an A-level they want, the English or maths resit line. Put the household’s calm pressure there. A child chasing four extra grades at once usually earns none. One or two, given a term of the method, is how families actually see a move.
What to say instead of “have you revised?”
“Teach me what you learned” is the question that is itself revision. “What’s the plan for this week?” nudges them to have one. “Which topic is still leaking marks?” opens a useful conversation without a verdict. Marks during revision are supposed to wobble, because proper practice spends time on weak topics. A parent who reacts to every score teaches their child to practise only what is already solid, which is the one strategy that cannot raise a grade.
When to bring in extra help
A tutor earns their fee for one stuck subject where a misconception has been sitting since Year 9, or where confidence has collapsed after a mock. Typical advertised rates run roughly £30–£60 an hour, so covering the whole timetable that way is how the budget vanishes. A practice tool that marks as they go is the daily half; a tutor is the specialist half. School may already have issued Seneca or similar for content. Do not stack a second content app on top of it. Add questions, or add a human for the one subject, then stop shopping.