Learning at secondary school - part 1

• Mentorles
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 1

Good results come from good support

Parents

Teachers

Mentor

At home:

• Make sure that you have a quiet place without distractions from your brothers, a mobile or a Playstation
• Ask parents to help you make a  realistic homework plan: divide tasks up in to smaller pieces, prioritise and plan in free time for yourself. 
• Arrange a good time for parents to help you if you need it, or even better, just a regular time to chat about school.

Good planning

Peviously, teachers told you exactly what and when you needed to do for homework. Nowadays, is that rather different and although the teacher still sets the deadlines, they expect that you plan your own work and set your own time frame, also there is more group work and projects. Good planning is essential.

Make a weekly plan:

1. Look in Magister or Google Classroom to check when you have a test or when a task/assignment needs to be completed. 
   
2. Then work backwards. For a test week start 3 weeks in advance.
3. Write down what has to happen that week and estimate how long this will take you.

      TIP: Write down how long the task actually did take you so that you can make a more accurate estimate next time. 

Planning per day

• Now divide the work and the subjects over the days, remember that you also have sports, music lessons, family time. 
  
• Plan your homework for the week days and reserve the weekend as a buffer, in case you need more time.
• Start your homework with the most difficult subject, or if you are not in the mood to study, then try doing just 15 minutes of the easiest task. 

Everyone is different.

Some of you will get home and want to just chill out and then start with homework. Some of you will want to get it over and done with as soon as possible. 

No problem, work out what is best for you. 

Tool box for planning

Good planning can be difficult. These tools make it all a bit easier. Then you have everything in one place so that you don't forget your homework. 

Online learning: Magister or Google Classroom - most teachers put homework and test in Magister, what you need to do and when it needs to happen.

 Paper diary (papieren agenda) - Teachers sometimes give homework at the end of a lesson, where do you write this down? In a diary of course. Writing down the homework should mean that you remember to do it more easily. 

Tip:

Hang an A3 paper on the wall at home, use this to write down your week plan. Nice and clear as it is so big ; ).

When you have completed the tasks, cross them off.

Planning with an app

Download the Studiekring huiswerk planner. 

Free to download from the App store or the Playstore. 

You can plan and check your homework in the app.