I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it is important for you to start the year well, but hopefully, I can give you a few tips to help kickstart your return to school.

Get Organised

First, it is important to ensure you are well organised. Make sure you have a method and structure that you are going to be using to stay on top of your notes and summaries. Use what works for you. I know students who like to use a big summary notebook and others that have separate folders or booklets for each subject. Make sure that each module/topic in PDHPE is clearly marked.

If you are electronic you can do this by using the heading styles in word or Google docs. To do this you simply have to choose Heading 1 for the module, heading 2 for the critical question and heading 3 for the dot points. You can then insert a quick and easy contents page for quick and easy navigation through your document.

You should also organise your workspace. Clean your desk at home, and make sure you have a spot to store all your notes and summaries and that these are labelled. You want to not waste time looking for what you need to study.

Revise

You should have done this already, but if you haven’t you NEED to revise the content you covered in term 4 last year. This is very important. If you don’t regularly revise content you will forget it. Regular revision helps to put the information into your long-term memory and improves your ability to recall information, which is very important if you are then going to apply it, think critically about it, or simply describe it (for more information on regular revision check out the post on Spaced Repetition)

One of the best ways to revise is to go over your flashcards (if you don’t have any you can purchase mine here 🙂 or create your own). Being creative with content is also a great way to revise. Put the content into a story or create a visual summary of the content. You could do this through mind-maps (I have an article on mind-maps here) or graphic design. Either way, stick it on your wall and read over it regularly.

Plan

You should plan out your year, or at least the rest of this term. Put in your assessments, exams etc and put in some study goals of what you want to get completed by when. goals such as completing 2 past paper exam questions each week and getting feedback on them. Or, make sure you go through your flashcards each week or create your mind-maps by week 3. Put these up in a public space at home and get your parents or friends to help keep you accountable. You should also select dates to have draft assessments done and hand them to your teacher for feedback at least a week before the task is due. This allows them time to provide you with feedback and you enough time to fix it up to get the best mark you can.