I first wrote this when my eldest was in year 9 hoping that she would acquire good study habits as she started her GCSE studies. Since then I have updated it several times as she and her brother moved to different stages. Now they are both at university, and they are ultimately responsible for their own studying. They are still not perfect but I think they have both learned a lot and each developed their own study style with a bit of help from me and their dad.
My daughter is getting to the end of year 9 – she has chosen her GCSEs but now she has to prove herself worthy in the end of year exams. She and I know she will do fine, but she wants to do so much more than fine….
This part is tricky for me. I want to help – I want to tutor her – I want to impose strict timetables and make her study, but this is completely wrong. She needs to motivate herself – she needs to work it all out for herself. For year 9 I am letting her do exactly what she wants to do. If she fails, then she will learn, and then I will be there to help if she needs me.
This is the time when children need to form good study habits. Each year the work will get more and more, and the students who cope best with GCSEs and beyond will be the ones who laid down good organisation and study habits early on.
These are the habits I have shared with my daughter to help her create good study habits for life, and a few that she has learned at school and taught to me.
1: Make use of a daily planner
This will remind the student of what they have to do that day. Daily planners are easy to carry around and it is now possible to download planners as Apps for use on any mobile device. In my daughter’s school they all have a planner and they have to use it, but it is really helping her to focus and organise herself.
2: Change their mindset
My daughter needs to accept that studying needs now to become a regular part of her daily routine, and some of her other interests may need to take a back seat for a while. She is fighting this, but she will have to come round to it later. A little bit of leisure time , along with exercise and doing activitiesshe enjoys is also very beneficial, but it should be in addition to daily study rather than a substitute.
3: Create a homework schedule
It can help to write out their schedule for the entire week at one time. Then just go back and add in things as they come up. My daughter is a horrible procrastinator and is having to learn the hard way that the best night to do homework isn’t always the night before it is due.
4: Studying alone and studying with friends
My daughter has really benefited by getting together with groups of her friends to study together. I didn’t honestly think this would work, but when they get together to study, they do actually study and ask each other questions about their topics. I suspect this wouldn’t work well with all groups of teenagers, but she certainly enjoys group study as well as independent study.
Another trend, which I don’t really understand, is where her friends get on a zoom call together, but they don’t really say much to each other, they just sit there in their rooms studying “together”. Apparently this is good for accountability. She says it feels like being with and seeing your friends, but it also shows that everyone is studying and you are not missing out on anything more fun. As a parent, I’m happy with anything she does when she actually gets on with it, but I do keep an ear open.
5: Different Study Sources
When I did my exams there were just one or two textbooks for each subject, and you had to pretty much learn them by heart. To be honest it was tedious and soul-destroying. Nowadays there are lots of different study aids – online quizzes, videos, podcasts and short articles, covering many of the study topics in interesting and engaging ways. Not all screen time is bad – I can see that you could actually develop a real interest in your school subjects if you approach them from different angles.
We made a point as parents of asking them about their favourite subjects at the dinner table, and they would often recommend interesting YouTube channels to us. When they have something tricky they are trying to remeber I ask them to teach the subject to me, which seems to work quite well.
I’ve learned a huge amount over the two childrens’ public exam periods… some of the stuff they are learning is quite interesting…
6: Pack up school bags and books the night before
Preparing for each day in advance means they will be less likely to leave any important books or equipment behind. My children are not morning beings, and it is much easier for them to remember and pack what they need the night before, than trying to get their brain started in the morning. This is an ongoing battle we are working on – my son is even worse…
7: Get Good Sleep
Students often have a busy social life, but they still need between 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night. Getting enough sleep will help increase their concentration levels. Again, this is a work in progress for us, but I have to keep trying…
8: Eat a good breakfast
At the very least prepare a shake, smoothie or a protein bar for your child. Their body needs fuel to concenterate and pay full attention all day. Not eating breakfast will leave them feeling weak and tired before lunch time even hits. My daughter’s school also has a breakfast club for the few days when she really can’t face or hasn’t got time for breakfast before she leaves.
9: Develop good note taking skills
Sometimes there is a lot of material to cover in class and the teacher over-delivers with massive amounts of content. Being able to condense all of this information will help them save time later on when writing up essays. Some students learn better by drawing diagrams, mind maps etc. some by taking bullet point notes, and some by doing notes and doodles or using multi coloured pens.
My daughter uses Goodnotes on her iPad to make independent notes and also to annotate pdfs and scanned pages from her textbooks. Goodnotes has a flash card system for testing yourself on key points, but she also likes to make multi-coloured physical flash cards and then use them in her hands to test herself. Each student should experiment with what works for them.
All of the above points will provide any student with tools and resources to develop her own good study habits that will not only help in school, but later on in life too. And to be honest a few of them are just as relevant to me running my business.
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