Is there a mild feeling of panic in the air at your home? Is your child looking a little bleary, mumbling about studying, feeling guilty for not doing enough, and yet the exams are weeks away? Sounds like a case of exam stress!
Here’s how to alleviate it:
- Plan – have a planner in a prominent place which your child fills in so they and you know when they should be studying and when they should be relaxing.
- 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, and deeper thinking, it increases vocabulary and empathy. All of these are a way to sharpen the mind and improve exam results!
- The two best study strategies are:
- self-testing – so encourage your children to quiz themselves or help by testing them. Flashcards are great and friends discussing and testing them on their study is very effective.
- spacing study over time – so do summaries of new material learned each night, and then at the end of the week write flashcards 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, and don’t forget that you can book an individual study skills session at the RASC for your child – or they can do it themselves, either on our website or by popping in and requesting it. We also have study skills tuition after school each Wednesday.
Over the next few weeks, we will also be running study presentations/workshops for the Year 11s and Year 9s. All the best in the exams!
Ms Georgiou
Head of Research and Study
