A printable Cornell notes template
Notes go in the wide right-hand column during the lesson. Afterwards, write cue questions down the narrow left column and a summary at the bottom in your own words. To revise, cover the notes and answer your own cues. It turns a page of notes into a self-test, which is the difference between having notes and using them.
Last updated 20 August 2026 · Written and checked by the GCSEwiz team
What is on the sheet
- The standard Cornell layout at a size that suits GCSE handwriting
- A cue column wide enough for real questions
- A summary strip you have to fill in from memory
1 sheet · A4 portrait · black and white
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Cornell notes
Notes on the right in the lesson. Cues and summary afterwards, from memory.
| Cue questions | Notes |
|---|---|
| Cue | |
| Cue | |
| Cue | |
| Cue | |
| Cue | |
| Cue |
Summary
Three or four sentences, written without looking at the notes column. Do this within a day.
The two columns do different jobs
The right column is for capture: whatever the lesson or the textbook gave you, in whatever shorthand you can write quickly. Nobody learns much while writing it, and that is fine, because capture is not the point.
The left column is where the learning starts. Turning your own notes into questions forces you to work out what each part of the page is actually saying, and it produces a ready-made test you can take next week.
The summary is not optional
Writing three sentences about what a page of notes means, without looking at them, is a small act of retrieval and self-explanation. It is also a quick check on whether the lesson landed: if you cannot summarise it the same evening, you will not be able to in May.
When the summary comes out empty, that is not a failure of the sheet. It is the earliest possible warning, and it is far cheaper to act on in October than in the week before the paper.