If the same mistakes keep coming back after a few weeks, a different explanation can help more than more practice. HRB's GCSE tutors teach one to one, online or in person, and can build lessons around what your child's papers show.
A grade 3 in a maths mock after weeks of revision is discouraging, and it raises a fair question: is a 4 realistic by the summer? That depends on how far away it is and why the marks are being lost. In AQA's June 2026 Foundation exams, a 3 started at 115 marks out of 240 and a 4 at 154, so a student with a grade 3 could have been anywhere from 1 to 39 marks short. Students at either end of that range need different plans, and neither needs to revise the whole course again.
The plan below starts by finding out where the marks are going, then fixes the causes in the order that wins the most marks back. Most advice on how to pass GCSE maths stops at "do past papers". This guide sets out what to do with them, in a form a parent can help with.
The plan at a glance
The exam details in this guide were checked on 5 November 2026 against AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, JCQ and Department for Education documents.
There is no pass mark for each paper. Getting a grade 4 in GCSE maths depends on your child's total across all three papers, and the exam board sets the grade boundaries after every exam series, so the marks needed move from year to year and differ between boards. These were the Foundation boundaries in June 2026.
OCR's three papers add up to 300 marks rather than 240, so its boundaries can't be compared mark for mark.
Here is how to use a table like this. Say your child scores 130 out of 240 on a full set of AQA Foundation papers from a past series. On the June 2026 boundaries that is a grade 3, 24 marks short of a 4, or about 8 marks a paper. That is the real size of the job. It means finding a few dozen marks, not learning a new course.
Two cautions apply. The 2027 boundaries will be different, so aim for a comfortable margin above an old boundary rather than the boundary itself. And a paper marked at home is only a rough guide, because schools set their own mock papers and convert marks in their own way. Our guide to GCSE grades explains how grades and boundaries work.
Find out which exam board and tier your child is entered for, because that decides which past papers and topics are relevant. A 4 is available on both Foundation and Higher. Foundation covers a smaller set of content, so a Foundation student shouldn't spend time on Higher-only topics such as circle theorems. If you're unsure whether your child is on the right tier, our guide to Foundation or Higher GCSE maths covers that decision.
Take your child's most recent mock and mark it against the official mark scheme, or use the marked script if the school has returned it. If there's no recent mock, one past paper from the right board and tier, sat in a single go, gives a baseline. Then go through every question where marks were lost and note the topic and the reason. You don't need to be confident with the maths to help, because the mark scheme shows where each mark comes from. Our guide to what to do after GCSE mocks covers getting the papers back and talking to the school. Most lost marks fall into one of five groups.
The point of sorting them is that each reason needs a different fix. More topic revision won't help a student whose marks go on slips, and a checking routine won't help one who doesn't know the method. Keep a simple log, one line per lost mark. A line might read: "Paper 2, Q9, percentages: worked out the answer, then wrote down a different number. Reason: answered a different question." Count the marks in each group. If one or two reasons account for most of the lost marks, that is where the plan starts.
Examiners see the same patterns. AQA's report on its June 2025 Foundation calculator paper noted that students didn't always show working when asked to, lost accuracy by rounding decimals too early and left out units. Some worked out the right value and then gave a different number as their answer. Several questions had large numbers of blank answers, yet the examiners found no evidence of time pressure. Not every lost mark is a gap in knowledge.
The best starting point depends on your child's current level and what the audit showed.
For Foundation students, number deserves early attention. Pearson Edexcel, for example, says about half the marks on its Foundation papers assess number, ratio, proportion and rates of change, and half are for carrying out routine procedures accurately. Number skills also run through almost every other topic, so a student who rebuilds them benefits twice. That doesn't make it a magic list. Any part of the Foundation content can be examined, so this is about order, not leaving topics out.
Struggling with maths doesn't on its own mean a learning difficulty. If maths has been hard for years, particularly with basic number sense, and teaching doesn't seem to stick, talk to your child's maths teacher or the school's SENCo. Our guide to the signs of dyscalculia explains what to look for and what support schools can offer.
The question of how to revise for maths GCSE mostly comes down to what happens in each session. A session can follow the same simple shape every time, whether it lasts 30 minutes or an hour.
This shape follows the evidence on learning. A major review of study techniques rated testing yourself and spreading practice out over time as the most useful, and found that rereading and highlighting did not consistently improve results. Mixing topics, known as interleaving, rated as moderately useful. The Education Endowment Foundation is more cautious. Its review finds these approaches can have a meaningful impact, but evidence on how best to use them in classrooms is still limited.
Several shorter sessions a week usually do more than one long one, because spacing practice out is part of what makes it stick. How many your child needs depends on how far they have to go. A student close to a 4 with good habits needs less time than one rebuilding number skills. And a topic is done not when it makes sense in the moment, but when your child can answer a fresh question on it, without notes, a week or so later.
Past papers are the best practice material there is, because they show exactly how questions are asked and marked. A full timed paper is a test, though, and a student with big gaps learns little from sitting one and getting most of it wrong.
Use past papers by question or by topic. Your child tries a question, checks it straight away against the mark scheme, sees where the marks came from and redoes it if needed. Notes are fine at first. The aim at this stage is understanding how marks are awarded, not proving anything.
Maths mark schemes give marks for more than the final answer. AQA's mark schemes, for example, award method marks "for a correct method which could lead to a correct answer", accuracy marks that follow on from a correct method, and independent marks that don't depend on method. Where a question asks students to show working, an answer on its own usually scores nothing. So a half-finished method can still earn marks, and a correct answer with no working can lose them.
Exam boards also publish examiner reports, which describe the mistakes students made on each paper. Reading the report for a paper your child has just practised is a quick way to see which errors are common, and whether your child is making them too.
Full timed papers come later, once most of the gaps from the audit are closed. From then on, a timed paper every couple of weeks shows whether the work holds up under exam conditions. Mark it strictly, add every lost mark to the log and feed the reasons back into the plan.
Use papers from your child's own board and tier. One paper in each set is non-calculator (Paper 1 for AQA and Pearson Edexcel), so practise written methods for that one and use the calculator properly on the others. AQA's examiners noted students using non-calculator methods on the calculator paper, particularly for percentages, and others making arithmetic slips a calculator would have avoided.
One mock grade is a poor measure of progress, because papers vary in difficulty and one bad morning can drag a result down. Look instead for evidence that builds over several weeks.
Review the plan every three or four weeks. If a reason keeps showing up despite targeted practice, more of the same probably won't fix it. That is the point to change the approach, whether that means a different explanation, a different resource or more support.
For summer 2027, AQA's GCSE maths papers are on 14 May (Paper 1, non-calculator), 27 May (Paper 2, calculator) and 14 June (Paper 3, calculator), all in the morning. Pearson Edexcel and OCR publish their own timetables, so check your child's board. The stages below are built around those dates, but the same order works for any exam season.
Is it too late after mocks? Results in December or January leave around four or five months before the first paper, which is enough time to work through a focused list of gaps. There is no fixed time for moving from a 3 to a 4, because it depends on how many marks are missing and why. A student starting from a 1 or 2 has more to rebuild and may need extra support to get there in one year.
In England, students aged 16 to 18 on a funded study programme who don't yet have a 4 in maths carry on studying it. Full-time students with a grade 3 must work towards the GCSE, and those with a 2 or below can take a GCSE or Functional Skills level 2. Colleges and sixth forms must plan at least 100 hours of maths teaching a year for these students, delivered as whole-class lessons. That is the college's teaching time, not a home-study target. Colleges also decide when to enter a student, based on whether they judge them ready to improve their grade. These rules come from the Department for Education's condition of funding and apply to funded 16 to 19 study, not to adults studying on their own.
The plan works the same way after 16. Start with the audit, use lessons for new teaching, and use independent practice for the targeted work in between. For exam dates, entries and costs, see our GCSE resits guide.
Plenty of students reach a 4 with good teaching at school and focused practice at home. Before paying for anything, ask the maths teacher what the school offers, such as intervention groups or revision sessions, and use the exam board's own past papers and mark schemes, which are free.
Extra teaching tends to be worth considering when:
A good tutor diagnoses before teaching, explains things a different way when the first explanation hasn't worked, and keeps the plan honest. What tutoring can't do is guarantee a grade. If you're weighing it up, our guide to how often your child should see a tutor covers how many sessions make sense.
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