Best Revision Timetable Apps 2026: 7 Compared for GCSE & IB

Quick answer

• Root Tutor: the Planner plans every study session around your classes, free time and busy nights, plans the run-up to each test, and you change it in one message. The tutor and practice papers sit in the same place.
• Get Revising: a free timetable maker that fills your free slots with revision, but you still decide what each session covers.
• MyStudyLife: a free school planner for classes, homework and exams, with an AI coach, but not built around your exam specification.
• Notion, Google Calendar, Structured, Todoist: blank planners and to-do lists. They hold a timetable you build yourself.

Most students searching for a revision timetable app already know what a timetable is. The problem is keeping one alive past the second week, when a netball fixture lands on Tuesday and the chemistry mock moves forward.

The best revision timetable app for most GCSE, A-Level and IB students is Root Tutor. Its Planner plans every study session around your classes, free time and busy nights, builds the run-up to each test, and learns your pace. When your week changes, you tell it in one message and confirm before anything moves.

If you would rather build a timetable by hand, our guide on how to make a revision timetable walks through it step by step. This page compares the apps that do some or all of that work for you.

What a revision timetable app actually has to do

A good revision timetable app does four jobs: it fits revision around your real week, it spreads each subject out over time, it tells you what to do in each slot, and it rebuilds the plan when life gets in the way. Most apps only do the first.

These are the criteria we used, and why each one matters:

• It plans around your real week. People reliably underestimate how long tasks take, a pattern Buehler, Griffin and Ross named the planning fallacy (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1994). A timetable built on wishful hours collapses by Wednesday.
• It spreads study out. A 2006 meta-analysis by Cepeda and colleagues pooled 317 experiments and found spaced study beats massed study, with the best gap growing the longer you need to remember. An app should spread each subject across weeks, not stack it the night before.
• It says what, when and where. Gollwitzer and Sheeran's meta-analysis of 94 tests (2006) found that planning the when, where and how of a goal had a medium-to-large effect on reaching it. "Biology, Monday 5pm" beats "do more biology".
• It works back from your exam dates. Exam boards publish their timetables well ahead, for example AQA's confirmed May/June 2027 GCSE and A-Level timetables. The run-up to each paper is where a plan earns its keep.

Competitor details below are from their public pages, checked on 11 October 2026.

At a glance

1. Root Tutor: best overall revision timetable app

Root Tutor is the all-in-one AI tutor for IB, GCSE and A-Level. It plans your study sessions, teaches the way you think, and gets you ready for every test. The Planner is the part that replaces a revision timetable.

What it does for your timetable:

• Plans every study session around your classes, your free time and your busy nights. Mark a "Night off" and it plans around it.
• Keeps every class moving, with keep-up sessions for each class every week, so one subject never quietly disappears.
• Plans the run-up to each test, with three ways to prep, and learns your pace as you go.
• Changes in one message. Type "busy Thursday" and it suggests a new week. You confirm before anything moves.
• Reminds you by email on days with a session, with a weekly check-in, and puts homework, projects and assignments on the same board.

The difference from every other app on this list is what sits behind each session. Root was built for the IB by an IB student and supports GCSE, IGCSE and A-Level. Every class lives in units with its own tutor, topics, notes and files. Revision mode checks what you still remember and shows what to learn next, and one tap sends your gaps to the tutor, which builds a study plan starting with them. Test prep sets practice papers in your exam's style, marks them like an examiner, and sends what needs work into your plan.

So a Chemistry slot comes with what your last check-up and practice paper said needs work, not a blank page.

2. Get Revising: best free printable timetable

Get Revising's free study planner lets you block out times you cannot study, then automatically adds revision sessions around them. You can drag sessions to change them, get email reminders and print the plan.

What it lacks next to Root: it schedules time, not content. Each block still needs you to decide which topic to revise and how, and it has no tutor or practice questions behind the slot.

3. MyStudyLife: best free school planner

MyStudyLife calls itself a free student planner for classes, homework, exams and revision, with rotating and block timetables and reminders before each class, deadline and exam. It suggests asking its AI coach, Scout, to build a revision plan.

What it lacks next to Root: it is a general planner. It does not hold your topics, check what you remember or set exam-style practice, so the plan and the revision live in different places.

4. Notion templates: best for students who like to build their own system

Notion's marketplace lists thousands of student planner templates, and the ones in the visible listing are free. You can build a tidy database of subjects, topics and dates.

What it lacks next to Root: nothing plans itself. You set every date, move every block, and rebuild it all when a test moves. Many students spend more time styling the page than revising.

5. Google Calendar: best for seeing revision next to everything else

Google Calendar lets you set any event to repeat weekly, so a fixed revision block sits next to school, clubs and family plans on your phone.

What it lacks next to Root: it holds blocks, it does not choose them. It cannot tell you which topic is due, spread a subject towards an exam, or rebuild the week when you fall behind.

6. Structured: best visual day planner

Structured puts your tasks on a visual timeline for free. Its help centre lists Structured AI, recurring tasks and Replan as Pro features.

What it lacks next to Root: it is a day planner for anyone, not a study tool. Repeating a weekly revision block is a Pro feature, and nothing in it knows your subjects or exams.

7. Todoist: best simple to-do list

Todoist's free Beginner plan gives you 5 personal projects, task reminders and list and board layouts. The calendar layout and custom reminders are on Pro.

What it lacks next to Root: a list of tasks is not a timetable. It will remind you that "Physics revision" exists, but not when to do it or what it should cover.

Which app is best for GCSE, A-Level or IB?

The right answer is the same tool for all three, because the problem is the same: too many subjects, a moving week, and exams on fixed dates. What changes is the scale.

For a GCSE student, the hardest part is breadth. Ten subjects means ten sets of topics competing for the same evenings, and the first one to drop is usually the one you like least. Our guide to revising for GCSEs covers the method behind each session.

For IB students, the coursework sits on top of the revision. Our IB revision timetable shows how to fit IAs, the Extended Essay and Year 1 content into the same weeks.

A worked example: one week, two ways

Picture a Year 11 student with football on Tuesday, a family dinner on Friday and a chemistry mock in nine days.

By hand, in a calendar or Notion: they list topics, guess hours, place blocks, and set chemistry to ramp up next week. On Wednesday a history essay lands. Now they redo the week: move chemistry, push maths, find where history fits, and work out whether the mock run-up still works. That rebuild happens every time something changes, which is most weeks.

In Root: they add their classes, mark Tuesday and Friday as busy, and add the mock. The Planner places the sessions and plans the run-up to the mock. When the essay lands, they type "history essay due Monday, busy Wednesday" and confirm the new week.

The second way takes the planning off the student and leaves the revising. That is the job a revision timetable app should do. Tracking forty-odd topics across ten subjects, deciding what goes in every slot and rebuilding the plan each time the week shifts is the hidden work behind every paper timetable. Root takes that on: it is an AI tutor and study system that keeps every class, topic and note in one place, teaches step by step, and plans your study sessions around your real week. If you want to see every mode first, here is everything Root does, or you can try it free with no card.

Mistakes to avoid with any timetable app

• Planning hours you do not have. Start with the time you actually got last week, not the time you hope to find.
• Blocks with only a subject name. "Maths" invites drifting. "Maths: simultaneous equations, 10 questions" gets done.
• No review time. Bring back last week's topics on purpose. Spaced return visits help you remember for longer, as how to make a study plan explains.
• Too many apps. A calendar, a to-do list, a notes app and a flashcard app means four places to update. Pick one main tool. For the wider toolkit, see our best revision apps.

The best revision timetable app is the one that still matches your real week in March. Pick one that rebuilds the plan for you, and spend the saved time revising.