If you think your child has the ability and drive to excel in academics, then all you need is the right guidance to set the study habits. Being a dedicated parent is not a walk in the park, especially, if your child, studying in the international school, is aiming for that next Gold Medal in the International Math Olympiad or Inter-school debate competition.
To make sure that your child is accomplishing all the academic goals which you are setting up for her and keeping up the efforts to challenge herself, you as parents play a quintessential role. You’ve probably heard of the phrase ‘study smart, not hard’, and this does prove to be right to some extent; but, when you’re aiming to top the international school, you just can’t simply mug the concepts and hope for the best.
The students studying at international schools get exposure to world-class resources with top-notch infrastructure. The motive of the pedagogy in an international school is to help your child in succeeding in academics with a strong foundation. Teachers share some fantastic tips and strategies to help your child become a topper and ace various milestones.
Some of the key strategies are as follows:
1. Encouraging them to participate in the classroom:
Teachers are encouraging, helpful, and supportive of all the students. They pay equal attention to all the children in the class. Not only do they help in persuading students to participate in the class activities, but make sure that they learn something new every day. Furthermore, every class period is made an engaging one with fruitful discussion among students. Teachers make sure that the most common fear of public speaking vanishes from students. Students are encouraged to bring up points and questions that relate directly to the specific lesson or module your class is covering that week.
2. Making students avoid last moment preparation:
More students live in the illusion that they would just start studying a few weeks before the exams and score the desired marks. When the time comes, and they sit to study, they hate it, and can’t find any interest in it. Think useless, hate their friends who are studying, talk to the ones who always score well. And then worry because they’re going ahead of you, invite stress because the course syllabus is too large to cover.
This happens because studying doesn’t just happen. It’s a habit built over time. Instead of making a habit of studying, a student should have been daily developing other habits. And suddenly when they change their routine and demand from their brain to focus on studies, it gets confused. That’s not how the brain works. It simply does as trained. Those who say they study for one night and score well are making a fool. There are no tricks, schemes, mind games, but the mere truth of life everything comes from hard work. Furthermore, at the Global Indian International School, teachers strongly recommend avoiding this kind of mindset. In fact students are going to learn years later.
3. Helping students to study efficiently:
Teachers know the main difference between mugging up the concepts and understanding the fundamental concepts and applying them to solve complex problems. They help students to plan and strategize their small and manageable study schedules. This, in turn, helps them to cope up with stress. Furthermore, with study schedules, teachers occasionally take tests and measure the progress of the students. Accordingly, they suggest some tips and tricks to excel in their academic journey.
4. Choose to study as an interest:
Why does this world quantitatively have such many average students? Because they are dumb? The answer is a straight “No”. Most people are dumb because they choose to procrastinate doing important things. It’s not an affliction. You have to understand, to get better in anything, the mere thing you need to do is practice. Practice in itself includes hard work. Because, you have not consciously chosen anything in your life yet. Why do you think older guys and men always say,” at your age, we used to make the same mistake.” Because they actually have. They are not saying it to be cool in front of you; they are stating a fact being cool in reality is actually being like everybody else. So be careful about choosing your interests and; instead, try choosing studies as an interest. Our teachers always make sure that the students are studying with an interest.
5. Praising is a good thing:
Let’s be honest, your child is achieving goals and heading towards that gold medal one day at a time. However, sometimes all your child needs are a few words of encouragement from the people she admires and looks up to i.e teachers and parents themselves. Our teachers support your child and ensure that their confidence soars. Nagging your child to study, or making them feel bad for not putting in enough effort, or falling short by a few marks is only going to make them feel disheartened and destroy their confidence and motivation. Our teachers remind your child about the importance of studying-not to meet your expectations but to be better prepared for the future.
6. Helps students to stay away from distractions:
Distractions can break the concentration of students and can divert them from the goals. Our teachers help students to steer clear from social media for chatting purposes and just mindless scrolling. They teach them the tricks to focus on the goals amidst all the distractions around. For example, If students have to use their computer, our teachers make sure that they download the software that will block distracting websites while they study peacefully.
7. Helping students do All of their Homework:
Our teachers help students to make a homework calendar as juggling coursework for different classes can be tricky. So, it is important to stay as organized as possible. While helping you keep track of all of your homework due dates and schedule a specific time to work on assignments, our teachers also help you in maintaining a day planner or a wall calendar to schedule their homework time. To make things more detailed, our teachers recommend color-coding the calendar with colored pens to show the priority level or difficulty of assignments. This will prepare them to fully participate in class and impress the teacher.
8. Motivating Students Persistently:
Staying positive and motivated helps students to score great grades in schools. Our teachers consistently motivate students through other curricular activities. This helps them to do their homework on time. Students tend to set goals for themselves and achieve them.
Some kids are self-motivated. And other kids are less motivated and need a little push here or a lot of prodding there. If you’re wondering how to motivate your child, you might automatically think of rewarding your child for every step he takes in the right direction and applying negative consequences for steps he takes in the wrong direction. In reality, the best approach is to go easy on the rewards and punishments and cultivate her internal motivation—help her to tune into the feelings of accomplishment and the pride she feels for a job well done.
9. Teachers are polite and respectful:
Being disruptive in class will not only keep you from learning efficiently, it will distract others. The secret tool which our teachers have in their arsenal is politeness and respectable behavior towards everyone. Our teachers make sure that students are always respectful to their teacher and classmates, and maintain a positive attitude. Being well-behaved will put you in your teacher’s good graces, which may translate into better grades for effort and participation.
10. Revise Frequently:
Our teachers make sure that your child’s study schedule includes the scope for frequent revisions. This will help your child to recall what he has studied during the past few days. Make your child understand the adage, ‘Practice makes perfect,’ and tell him how he can apply it to academics.
Our teachers, with the immense exposure of working with students at an international school, believe that helping your child inculcate all these habits may prove to be challenging. However, doing so will bring in great rewards in the long run. When you sit down and plan everything systematically, it will eventually seem easy. Amidst all this learning, giving your child time to have fun boosts up their interest to learn, and because they are young, they have the right to have fun. So, if you inculcate these practices effectively and regularly it will become a habit; and, we all know that ‘habits die hard.’
