We all find it difficult getting back to work after a long holiday. However, if your holiday happens to have been six to nine weeks, depending on which school you go to, and longer if you did your GCSEs in the summer, returning to studying, working and routines can be even tougher. However, you have had an exceptionally long holiday and the sad truth is, summer is over, September is here and you do need to start studying … straightaway!
Whether you’re returning to school to start a crucial exam year in Year 11 or year 13, or beginning your GCSE or A’level studies, getting off to a flying start in your studies is vital to being successful in your course. Waiting a couple of weeks to ‘settle in’ or ‘ease your way back into it’ means vital content has passed you by and it’s catch-up from then on. If exams begin in May, and it’s revision from Easter onwards, waiting half a term to ‘get going’ is seeing more than a quarter of the year’s very valuable teaching time rush by, with you chasing after from thereon in.
Start studying as you mean to go on with smart and effective study habits from lesson one. These will include:
- Organisation
It sounds obvious, but for many of us, this can be the most difficult part, especially if you’re used to parents or teachers telling you what to do. Knowing where you are supposed to be at a set time, having the correct equipment and books for each lesson, and managing your notes, worksheets, test papers and homeworks in a form that suits you, will help enormously. Have a system worked out for each subject, to manage everything you will need. This could be separate folders for each subject, re-writing notes, filing manually or electronically, and keeping what you need and discarding what you don’t need.
- Time Management
Plan each week, keeping a flexible timetable that allows for your homework, study time as well as personal commitments and hobbies, fitting in everything that you need to cover. Know what you are going to accomplish in each session, so to avoid procrastination. An effective study timetable should be workable and focused, with knowledge of how much time you need, so you can get what you want to cover done in that chunk of time.
- Reviewing
Review your work regularly so that there are no gaps in either the work completed or your understanding of it. Read through your notes checking that you understand them and they are detailed enough. If there are gaps in content, do you need to add more from a text book or website or maybe you missed a bit in a lesson. If there are gaps in understanding, speak to your teacher, research further around the topic, look up the internet to see other teaching of the topic online, or discuss the topic with a friend in the same class to refine your understanding.
- Key Concepts and Vocabulary
Every subject has its key information that you need to learn. These could be equations, words, concepts or formulae. Make sure you learn them as you go along, keeping a record of them for later use when revising.
Summer is over, and September has started but if you start studying straightaway and get into some good study habits, it will make the year go by much more smoothly and successfully.
Student Navigator (www.studentnavigator.co.uk) offers programmes for study and revision support as well as academic mentoring throughout your GCSE and A’level courses.