Budget-Friendly Ways to Help Your Teen Through GCSEs (Without Spending a Fortune)
Guest post by Jono Ellis, CPO at Cognito
Hi, I’m Jono. I run Cognito, a UK GCSE and A-Level revision platform used by about 1.5 million students. Jen kindly let me put together a guest post for Just Average Jen, because one thing that comes up over and over when we talk to parents is just how expensive GCSEs have quietly become.
It creeps up on you. The revision guides, the printer ink for past papers, the snack budget that doubles overnight, the petrol for after-school revision drop-offs. By the time anyone’s mentioned tutoring, you can be several hundred pounds in without quite knowing how.
If you’re going into exam season trying to keep things sensible, here are nine things that consistently save GCSE families money without dropping the support their teen needs.
Discount code: AVERAGEJEN20 (20% off Cognito Pro. The free tier is free.)
1. Use the free stuff the school gives you first
Most schools hand out revision guides, past papers and mark schemes for free. The parents who tell us they overspent in their first GCSE round almost always say the same thing: they bought nicer versions of stuff the school had already provided. Use what’s free before you go shopping.
2. The library is free
It sounds obvious until you realise you forgot. Most libraries have a GCSE revision section, a few quiet desks, and sometimes a bookable study room. Brilliant if the house is loud or your teen needs a change of scene.
3. Print past GCSE papers at school, not at home
Asking the school to print a stack of past papers is usually fine, and it saves a fortune in ink cartridges. If they won’t, a one-off trip to Tesco to print is still cheaper than using the home printer for a whole year of revision.
4. Pick one good GCSEs revision platform, not five
This is the big one. Free revision sites are everywhere but they’re patchy, and the time you lose to clunky free content adds up. For Science and Maths specifically, Cognito is the platform we run. It’s free to use (with some limits on the free tier), the videos are short, and the topic-by-topic practice means teens aren’t wasting evenings revising things they already know. Try it free first, and if your teen finds it useful, Just Average Jen readers get 20% off Pro with the code AVERAGEJEN20.
5. Buy revision guides second-hand
Year 11 finishes in May. By June, perfectly decent revision guides are going for £2 each on local Facebook groups. If you can plan a term ahead, you can pick up most of what you need for the price of one new copy.
6. Skip the fancy stationery
Notebooks from the supermarket are perfectly good. A pack of three highlighters is plenty. The Pinterest revision-aesthetic stationery haul costs £40 and improves precisely no grades.
7. Snacks: bulk-buy, not impulse-buy
The fruit bowl, the box of oat bars, the squash. All cheaper bought in one weekly shop than picked up daily. A revision snack drawer topped up once a week is the cheapest option.
8. Only pay for tutoring if it’s targeted
Tutoring is brilliant if your teen has identified a specific weak topic and needs an hour of one-to-one explanation. It is wildly expensive when used as a general “I don’t know what else to do” measure. One-off sessions for specific topics tend to give you most of the value.
9. The free skills that matter most
Sitting at the kitchen table while they revise. Listening when they offload. Making the tea. None of it costs a penny, and all of it makes more of a difference than anything you can buy.
GCSEs cost more than they should, and the pressure to spend is real. But you can absolutely get through this term without remortgaging. Pick one platform that earns its keep. Use what already exists for free. And remember that most of the panic-buying in exam season turns out to be exactly that. Spend slowly and you’ll still come out the other side with everything you needed.
Guest post by Jono Ellis, CPO at Cognito. Partnered with Just Average Jen. Cognito is free to use. Readers get 20% off Cognito Pro with the code AVERAGEJEN20.
