They are a part of finishing high school - the pressure is on, but does it need to be?
How do you prepare? How do you set up your space? Are you old school pen and paper or embracing tech? How do you keep yourself accountable? Do you give yourself 'me time'?
Here are some methods that may help boost knowledge retention as well as carving out some time to be you, because wellbeing should come before grades.
Set up somewhere that can get a bit of natural light and air flow. Pull back the curtains, crack open a window and don't clutter your space. Studies show this to be hugely effective.
If this isn't possible, try to get some passive lighting around you so you aren't just staring at a bright screen in the dark. Get up and go outside to suck in some fresh air every once
in a while.
Don't forget to keep your fluids up. Have some water nearby. All that brain nourishment requires a lot of H2O.
Food is important too... grab some fruit to snack on, veggies are good as well. Maybe a cheeky treat to celebrate achieving a goal. Just keep your stomach happy so your brain can keep firing.
Create a structure for your time. Grab your many assessment schedules and exam timetables as soon as you get them and put them into a calendar. Take some time to backward map a few milestones for each, load up reminders and prompts to kick you into gear and make sure you are prepared.
Make sure you:
Don't get lazy and file them away in a pile. Keep related content together, organised and ready to go. Create flashcards to revise. Plug your revision time into your schedule.
A few (fun?) memorisation techniques:
Share your notes, ask for help, offer assistance. You will all do better if you support each other. It should not be a competition with your peers. In fact, competition in school runs counter to what life will most likely demand... having collective goals and colleagues means working in a team, which means sharing responsibilities, collaborating, turning up for each other and, in general, being a good human.
Humbly seek feedback and offer assistance where you can. You are not expected to be an expert in everything and you will make mistakes. Embrace any misstep as an opportunity for growth and learning. There will be plenty more where that came from. Your resilience and motivation to brush it off and push forward speaks volumes! If you are stuck on something, park it for a bit. Don't abandon it. Park it. Seek advice from educators, peers, family. Come back later. Remember, you've planned ahead, so the deadline isn't immediate. You've built in a buffer.
There's obviously a bit more to it all, but I wanted to throw down some ideas and get a conversation started. If this helps a few learners even a little, that is a win. As for final year high school exams... they are not (and should not be) the life defining moment they appear to be. The emphasis is there to drive you, but at the end of the day, results do not shape your identity as a person. They won't measure your creativity, your deep passions, your empathy, your leadership skills, your ability to support others, your sense of humour... it can't tell the story of you and your intrinsic characteristics, so don't panic. There are multiple pathways out there for everyone post final exams.
Do your best, show up for yourself and others and if in doubt, smile, acknowledge you are not omniscient, and roll on. We are all learners on this wonderful rotating ball of colour, and the lessons of life will keep coming.
