4 Tips For Students Heading Back To School + Upcoming Workshop Details!

As students are heading back to school, I know there can be a real mixture of excitement,

motivation and, for some students, a growing sense of "Oh god… here we go again."

A new academic year can feel like a fresh start, but it can also feel like a lot when you look at everything that is coming: new topics, homework, assignments, tests, mid-term exams, prelims or mocks, and eventually the final exams. I remember myself, the jump in difficulty in the syllabi from one year to the next felt like a physical slap in the face sometimes. And that's before we even think about everything else your teen has going on outside of school.

So before they get caught up in the busyness of September, there are a few things I'd really encourage you and your teen to start thinking about now.

1. Get an overview of the year ahead

One of the simplest things you can do to reduce that "everything is happening at once" feeling is to actually get an overview of what's coming.

And I'm not just talking about school.

Look at the academic year alongside sports, competitions, holidays, birthdays, family commitments, big games, performances or anything else that is important to your teen.

Then start adding in the things they know are coming academically: assignments, unit tests, mid-term assessments, prelims or mocks, and eventually their final exams. At the beginning of each month,  they should already know what to be expecting so there shouldn’t be any nasty surprises.

We often underestimate how much easier things feel when we can actually see what's coming.

When a student knows that they have a big competition one weekend, a family event the next and an assessment coming up shortly afterwards, they can start thinking about how they're going to manage that workload before everything collides.

It doesn't mean they need to plan every minute of the next nine months. It's simply about having enough awareness of the road ahead that nothing feels like a complete surprise.

And for students who are prone to anxiety or overwhelm, that sense of predictability can be particularly valuable. Having this overview does a lot for feeling in control of one’s own studies rather than everything just happening ‘to them’

2. Set goals before the year gets busy

I'd also encourage your teen to think about what they actually want from this academic year.

Not just "I want good grades." What would they genuinely like to achieve? Which subjects do they want to improve in? What would make them feel proud at the end of the year? Are there particular grades they're working towards? And not only what grades are they looking for, but why? (That's one of my secret ingredients for reigniting motivation, knowing the why!)

But there's an important second part to this.

A goal isn't particularly useful if we never check whether we're moving towards it.

Once your teen has decided what they're working towards, they need some way of tracking their progress throughout the year. That might mean keeping an eye on their revision, homework, practice questions, past papers or how confident they feel with different topics.

Because otherwise it's very easy to get to November or February and think, "I've been studying… so why don't I feel any more prepared?"

Tracking gives you the opportunity to spot that much earlier. They should be building out revision trackers, habit trackers or progress tracker PDFs to physically update and check in on. 

3. Don't wait until the exams are approaching to start revising

Yeah yeah, obviously Brodie! I know. Tutors, parents and teachers say it a lot, probably too much. And I think students do ‘get’ it, but don’t know what it looks like to start revising early.But it's particularly relevant for those heading into an important exam year as they will have mocks/prelims first and finals, along with end of unit tests etc.

The content they're learning now is the content they will eventually need to retrieve under exam conditions, and to make their own lives easier, starting revision now is best. 

That doesn't mean they need to spend hours every evening revising from August onwards.

But it does mean that there is a huge advantage to developing the habit of regularly revisiting what they're learning from the beginning of the year, rather than allowing months of content to pile up and trying to tackle it all later. 

It can look like this: They learnt a new topic in school, they do active revision for it (not re-reading or re-writing notes, not flashcards, not PP questions!) the same evening or the day after. A few days later, they make a new piece of active revision for it, whether its another diagram or a mindmap. A week after that, they do some passive revision on it, or some retrieval work (now this is when they can use flashcards or PP questions). Then they slot a passive revision session into the calendar for another couple weeks later or a month later.

The trick here is doing revision little and often (and effectively!)

The earlier that habit becomes normal, the less intimidating the eventual revision period becomes. And the less they need to revise in that space of time.

4. Think about what might get in the way

Finally, I want students to think about this before they need to.

What usually causes them problems during the school year? Is it procrastination? Poor time management? Getting distracted? Forgetting deadlines? Feeling overwhelmed when several things are due at once? Falling behind after being sick? Losing motivation halfway through the year?

Because challenges are going to happen.

There will be weeks where they have too much on. There will be times when they don't feel motivated. They may get sick, have a busy period with sport, struggle with a topic or simply have a week where their routine falls apart.

The goal isn't to create a perfect plan that never goes wrong.

It's to have enough awareness and structure that when something does go wrong, they know how to get themselves back on track.

And this is actually why I think the start of the academic year is such a valuable time to think about all of this.

You don't want to wait until your teen is overwhelmed to start putting systems in place to manage the overwhelm.

You want to build those systems while things are still relatively calm.

If you'd like some hands-on help with this...

Next Friday, 28th August at 6pm, I'll be hosting my annual Back-to-School Workshop for secondary school students.

It's a practical 60-minute session designed to help students actually work through these things rather than simply hear another list of study tips.

We'll look at setting meaningful goals, creating habits and routines to support them, tracking progress throughout the year, getting an overview of the academic year ahead and preparing for the challenges that are likely to come up along the way.

Students will also receive practical PDFs that they can continue using throughout the school year.

If you'd like your teen to start the year with a clearer plan and a better idea of how they're going to stay on top of everything, you can find all of the details and book their place here:

The school year is going to happen whether we plan for it or not.

I'd much rather see students heading into it with some idea of where they're going, what's coming and how they're going to get there.

Brodie

Ignited Academia