Draft a study plan
Failing to plan is planning to fail!
Good preparation increases your chance of meeting your deadlines.
Reward yourself at regular intervals
Small rewards can keep you motivated during the study process
instead of just waiting for the end of exams.
Be targeted with your studying
Get as much information as possible on what is likely to be
in the paper and focus on this; this will save you unnecessary wasted time you motivated during the study process instead of just waiting for the end of exams.
Use “The Feynman Technique”
Teach the content you are learning to someone else,
if you understand it well enough to teach it you
understand it well enough to be assessed on it.
Practice!
Do assessments, past papers,
write essays so you can be fully prepared for exams.
Take good care of yourself
Eat well (brain food), get enough sleep, take exercise breaks,
have some down-time.
Think positively
Positive, reassuring thoughts when
you are preparing for and writing your exams will help you manage unnecessary anxiety and fears of failure.
Know yourself!
Know when you are at your peak cognitive performance
(morning, afternoon or evening)
and tailor your study plan around this knowledge.
Manage your stress effectively
Some stress is healthy and motivating, too much is debilitating and counterproductive.
Limit access to mobile devices whilst studying
It can take 23 minutes to resume full attention after a single interruption,
a constant stream of interruptions from your phone
can completely derail your study session.
Today’s teenagers are part of the generation with constantly changing career ideations, opportunities, and pathways. With the high speed of technological change, new careers are becoming available at increasing frequency, complicating decision-making for school-leavers even more.
However, all is not doom and gloom, and matriculating should be seen as a milestone experience, culminating in the beginning of true adulthood. With appropriate support, parents and students can have a healthy mental, physical and emotional states during this time.
Parents must create an enabling environment:
- Approach the stressed and anxious matriculant with encouragement.
- Acknowledge your child’s efforts to study and suggest activities to instil energy and confidence eg. Exercise, regular study breaks and healthy eating.
- Have realistic expectations. Each child is different, having a unique matric experience to older
siblings or friends. - Be open-minded to post-matric choices, so that you can acknowledge and support the individuality of your child; never assume that your career path would be good or not for your child.
- Prevent conflict situations as prevent your child from getting on a path to success that is right for them.
- Collaborate and show interest, and provide practical support such as taking them to open days at potential higher educational institutions for future study opportunities.
- Help research different careers fields and types of jobs, and help search for bursaries and work shadow opportunities.
- Maintain your health and wellness as a family – eat and do other fun activities together.
Encourage children that failure is a normal part of life. Not only are students that fail disappointed, even those that set very high or unrealistic goals can get devastated when they fail to reach those expected levels of performance. This stresses the importance of support during the matric year, through exams, and extend to after results are obtained, when further important decisions must be taken. For many students, there is suddenly an additional pressure to contribute to the financial status of the household, and we need to reassure our children that worry, disappointment and frustration are normal responses. It is our imperative to assure them that unfavourable examination results are not the end of the road, as there are a number of options open to them to take matters forward.
These range from:
• Writing a supplementary exam,
• Applying for a remark or the examination scripts,
• Enrolling at a Further Education and Training (FET) college, or
• Enrolling in a bridging course at a university.