Now we are back in a lockdown situation, many teachers and parents are looking for great home learning resources for their children and indeed lots of parents struggling to teach (entertain/occupy) their own children whilst trying to work from home. There are lots of free, excellent sources out there and in first lockdown we all become quite familiar with this new way of working, doing PE with Joe, baking cakes (if you could find the flour!) and we all experienced the challenges of distance learning. Your school will have provided access to their own digital learning platform (contact your school if you do not have those details). If you are a teacher wanting to share some fun activities, or a pupil or parent looking for some extra inspiration, then hopefully some of the links below are helpful.
I'm not telling you it's going to be easy, I'm telling you it's going to be worth it Arthur Williams Jr.
No exams actually might mean more stress come the next ‘big exam’. We do need a goal and a bit of stress, without it we become apathetic (“whatever!”). If we set some learning goals, organise ourselves, bite the bullet and do the work at that nervous but determined phase, it can stop the panic setting in. So get regular sleep, create a timetable, prioritise, stay active and try to keep things in perspective. Take part in our ‘Keeping the Balance’ stress activity.
Very few people haven’t heard the phrase ‘Growth Mindset’. Some people see their abilities and intelligence as something they are born with, yet in other areas they might see their skills as something they have developed and mastered over time. We become learners in some areas, yet switch off to learning in others. You have both mindsets! Check out our research section, a recent Herald article or click below to measure your ‘mindset’!
There’s plenty to distract us at home, when sitting down to study or work, a wee thought comes in, “oh I’d love a biscuit“… Basically you would rather be doing absolutely anything other than what you are doing at that time. We procrastinate on particularly difficult tasks (fear of failure), on those jobs that appear too big or maybe we don’t know how to get started. Some tasks are so important there is a notion that it must be ‘perfect’! Be honest, is the phone in your hand a help or distraction?
Exams are off (for now) but they are far less important than the learning itself. A test shows where we currently are in our learning, it is one point on a line and it’s our attitude that determines what direction that line is going. Maybe mock/prelims results don’t show the progress you have made, that you have the capacity to work hard & learn. Students will sit exams again this year and this guide offers a few ideas of how to get started, study conditions, what to do before, during and after a test.
Managing our time is vital, many successful people put their triumphs down to hard work, time management and those marginal gains. It’s funny how some people seem to get more done in 24 hours than the rest of us do in a week, do you think your friends will be watching boxsets for the next 5 months? They won’t be, it’s time to get organised, here is an off term time planner to aid your learning, available in 4 file formats just for you: PDF / EXCEL / PPT / WORD. Check out our Urgent v’s Important Quadrant!
It’s normal to feel worried or overwhelmed with everything we hear in the media about the Coronavirus. There are some great resources out there to help look after our mental health during these times of uncertainty. Your mental wellbeing really matters, click here for some fantastic resources or the link below for some more general information on building levels of resilience.
Studying is hard if you don’t know where to start. We must Understand it by asking questions, listening and researching. Try explain it to someone else? Then Condense content into manageable chunks, mindmaps for example. Then Memorise using anything that makes it more memorable to you (stories, colours, pictures, acronyms etc) and then Review (maybe test yourself with flashcards)
Schools all offer some kind of digital learning platform and should be sharing these with you. This could be online learning journals, Glow, Google Classrooms, Office 365 with OneDrive, Show My Homework etc. They might share this on the school website, through email or on twitter. We encourage you to access this and if you can’t find it or don’t have the facility to do so, make contact with them. The link below takes you to a PDF document with various links, however please check out the additional help below.
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