What’s the hardest part of revision?

There’s no denying that revision comes with challenges. Not many teens are having the time of their lives when they revise!

That said, revision contributes to your teenager’s future. Revision helps them to do their best for the greatest outcomes. Revision will make an impact, but what’s stopping your teen?

Starting

Getting going is often the toughest bit. Mustering up the motivation to actually get on with it is something your child is going to need to overcome. Many teenagers find that the solution to this is to find a calm, focussed environment to work in. Whether that be in the school library or in a quiet space at home, your teen will find it much easier to start their work if they’re in the right ‘zone.’

This is where our revision service is an excellent place to turn, too! As an external provider, we offer SQA courses for teenagers taking National 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers, where the environment is highly motivated and purposeful.

Staying Focussed

Often, the hardest part of revision is sticking at it. It’s not that difficult to pick up a pen and start working, but staying focussed is the trick! It’s amazing how many procrastinations one can find to escape the studying mind…

Simple tricks such as setting timers, working on one whole exam paper, or dividing the workload up into tick-lists or chunks will help.

Juggling

For your teenager, they’ve also got to master keeping their head in the game for many different exams, topics and subjects. It can be a lot to manage. This is where getting a revision timetable together is vital.

In addition to this, mapping times of intensive revision is wise. Plotting when your child may be attending our revision courses, for example, will give indication as to when your child will spend longer periods doing revision. Once your teen can see the bigger picture of how the rest of the academic year looks, they can then start to break tasks down into weekly- and daily- priorities.

One of the hardest challenges with revision is keeping up the motivation! But, momentum for this can soon start to trail off… especially when there seems a ‘lull’ between prelims exams and the final exams.

Use your Experience

As an adult, you probably spend much of your day multi-tasking and juggling all of the things you have to sort or do. Therefore, one of the most powerful things you can do to help your child at this time is to consider what you do to balance your workload. Which of these can relate to revision and your teenager?
Sometimes, the hardest part of revision is the thought of it. Perhaps it seems overwhelming. Dull. Too challenging. Again, what do you do when faced with difficulty? How do you mentally cope with these things as an adult? Using your own experience and expertise might be one way that you can not only empathise with your child but also help to equip them with strategies to handle the hardest parts of revision!

Encouraging your child to seek support will help them to stay afloat: whether they seek support in you, in our revision classes, with peers or class teachers, don’t let the hardest part be doing it alone.