Your child might be feeling super-prepared or most likely they won’t be thinking about them until just before the exams and then panic mode kicks in!
Here’s how to alleviate the stress:
- Plan – have a planner in a prominent place that your child fills in so they and you know when they should be studying and when they should be relaxing. The RASC has planners available for students to use.
- Screen time – negotiate with them on screen time – when and how much – what do they think is reasonable?
- Balance – build it in – yes there needs to be study, but there also needs to be relaxation, sport, hanging out with family and friends, church and plenty of time for sleep!
- Encourage reading – when’s the last time you read a good book? Practice it at home and encourage your children to read. Reading isn’t just a relaxing activity, it also encourages better concentration, deeper thinking, and increases vocabulary and empathy. All of these are a way to sharpen the mind and improve exam results!
- The three best study strategies are:
- self-testing – so encourage your children to quiz themselves or help by testing them. Flash cards are great and friends discussing and testing them on their study is very effective.
- teaching others – research shows that if students are told to prepare content to explain to others, they will do much better in tests and exams because your brain needs to organise the information in a more orderly manner.
- spacing study over time – so do summaries of new material learnt each night, and then at the end of the week write flash cards from the summaries, and then a week later, go through the flashcards to test yourself again.
You can start putting all these into place now for a happier, more balanced feeling at home over the next few weeks.
The Kennedy Research and Study Cente is a great place for resources. Students can book an individual Study Skills Session via our online databases (Infiniti), sending a Direqt Message, or requesting in person. We also have study skills tuition after school each Wednesday.
Ms Georgiou
Head of Research and Study
