Helping Parents Help Their Teens
When is the time for your teen to start thinking about reaching their academic potential this year? Well it’s NOW of course! Good study habits need to be forged early on If your teen thinks they can cruise the whole year, and then but be able to pull an A out of their, err, you know... come exam time, then think again. The students who are going to get good grades this year are … [Read more...]
We’ve noticed that a lot of parents are asking us about the same issues. "My teen doesn’t know how to study, my teen used to get good grades but now she’s lacking motivation, my teen gets really stressed out about tests and exams" – stuff like this. Almost EVERY teen struggles with these sorts of issues at one stage during their time at high school. Even straight-A-getters. … [Read more...]
Generally speaking, the single biggest cause of teens’ underachieving at high school is their inability to think long term. And by long term, we mean life after high school. The brain’s frontal lobe is an important region – it controls decision making, problem solving, purposeful behaviours, and emotions. Yet it doesn’t fully developed until we reach our early to mid twenties. … [Read more...]
When it comes to exams, we like to think of our brains like our muscles when we exercise. Most of us don’t launch into exercise like an Olympic marathon runner. We take a bit of time to warm up, to override the niggly pains, to come into our stride. Sitting an exam is exactly the same. It’s our experience that for the first half an hour or so of an exam, your brain is just … [Read more...]
With exams just around the corner we know how stressful things can get... Especially when you’ve got a number of teens at high school! If this is a position you’re in at the moment – may the force be with you. Hopefully your teen is going OK and isn’t too stressed! If they are panicking, we’ve got a tip for them to help remember much more in the last few days leading up to … [Read more...]
There's not just one right way for your teen to go about studying for exams. However, there is something that every teen should do during their exam preparation. Something so effective in helping students prepare for exams in fact (we speak from personal experience), it almost feels like you're cheating! It doesn't matter what your teen's predominant learning style is or how they … [Read more...]
Exams in New Zealand are about 3 weeks away, so we’re now well and truly in the countdown stages. [Clare] A few days ago, while tutoring one of my regular students, something struck me… He simply isn’t doing enough to pass. Because spending an hour a week with a tutor isn’t study! Yet, despite my complete honesty about the fact that he isn’t doing enough (or actually any, for … [Read more...]
Studying hard for their exams is not the only thing your teen needs to do in order to be well prepared. They also need to dedicate time to planning how they’re going to answer their exam questions. Because there’s actually a right and a wrong way to tackle exam questions. And this is most apparent with short answer questions (those requiring one or two lines maximum), and long answer … [Read more...]
You are your own worst enemy. This couldn’t be truer when it comes to studying. A study published in Psychological Science showed that a student’s self-belief is just as important, if not more, than IQ. So many students sabotage their own chances of exam success before they even start. Why? Because - as corny as it sounds - they don’t believe in themselves. A great … [Read more...]
Between the two of us we've sat quite a large number of exams since high school. In fact, we estimate we've sat 98 2-3 hour exams between us. This doesn't even include tests or assignments or internal exams. (That's not supposed to impress you by the way... Only to inform you we really have sat a lot of exams!) And on top of our own experiences, we're each currently spending three to … [Read more...]
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