Your greatest asset
The older I get, the more I realise this.
My single greatest asset in life is my time. Nothing is more valuable to me than my time.
If you spend money you can make it back, but time, once gone, is gone forever.
I absolutely hate wasting time. I hate being stuck in traffic because it robs me of time I could be spending with my family or doing something productive. I love technology because it enables me to generate more time to do the things I love.
This is a message for everyone, but particularly for students: treasure your time. Guard it. Don’t waste it. If you have a dream for your life, stay focussed on it and don’t get distracted. Invest time into it, and understand that you will never again have the opportunities you have now.
Steve Jobs, founder of Apple said, “My favourite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”
Don’t let it get away from you.
Considering a tutor for your child? We can help! We have amazing tutors ready to go that will help your child grow in confidence, love the learning experience and ultimately realise what they are capable of. Learn more here and book their first lesson online today!
How to get a good ATAR
“Just tell me what I need to do to get a good ATAR!”
The words of my student hung heavily in the air with expectancy – like I had a secret answer that I’d been guarding for years.
Unfortunately for my student, I didn’t have any secrets.
The answer is the same for the personal trainer who is asked how to lose weight or the financial planner who is asked how to save for a first home.
Hard work, persistence and discipline.
These 3 ingredients, while simple on paper, are much harder to stick with in practice. We all know how to lose weight but we don’t do it because we lack one of those 3 characteristics. But if you can excel at these 3 things, even those students who are perhaps not naturally academic can outperform even the brightest students.
Hard work is at the root of any success in any field. Occasionally we see overnight success, or someone get lucky, but those are the anomaly. 99% of success comes through insane amounts of hard work. It’s the soccer player going to the field after school every day and kicking goals for 2 hours. It’s the guitarist sitting in his room for hours on end and mastering his scales. It is the student going home and studying – even when his friends try to convince him otherwise. The greatest skill a student can learn is to work hard – to get in the zone and be super productive.
If you’ve ever tried to lose weight you will understand the value of persistence. Being healthy and cutting out junk is easy for a day or so – and then suddenly it gets hard. To succeed you need to build persistence in to your life – because the HSC is a long year and it is going to get really hard. Those students who perform the best are those that are able to remain persistent through the highs and the lows.
Discipline goes hand in hand with the other 2 points. Building up the discipline muscle is crucial for any success in whatever you want to do. There will be a billion things competing for your attention during your HSC year but you need to remain disciplined and focus on what really matters. When you are studying, actually study. Say no to youtube, no to snapchat and no to things getting in the way of your study patterns.
Good luck. I’m sorry I don’t have any secrets for you. But I promise you that if you master these three things you will get a good ATAR!
Considering a tutor for your child? We can help! We have amazing tutors ready to go that will help your child grow in confidence, love the learning experience and ultimately realise what they are capable of. Learn more here and book their first lesson online today!
RANT TIME: Parlez vous Francais?
It’s time for a bit of a rant. But hopefully a constructive rant.
There are a number of flaws in our education system. I think we all know this. But I refuse to be someone who complains about things without offering a solution. So I want to address one fundamental issue that I believe we can amend quickly and easily with minimal impact on budgets, staffing or infrastructure change.
I was talking to a student this afternoon who was in year 5 at a high performing public school and I asked her what language she studied at school. She stared at me blankly. Her mum jumped in and told me they don’t study languages at her school. I couldn’t believe it. I was genuinely annoyed. How was it that such an essential skill can be ignored?
I have said for the last few years that if I could change just one thing about the HSC, it would be that languages become compulsory through to the end of year 12. To me, it is one of the few subjects that would have real-world relevance, and unlike other subjects like music or art, it is not dependant upon natural ability but can be developed with hard-work and determination.
We must be one of the few countries in the world that fail to emphasise foreign languages in the education system. In Hong Kong, students start learning English in Kindergarten and continue through to the end of school. The same goes for Japan and many European countries. In the USA, 93% of schools include Spanish in the curriculum. But in NSW, less than 10% of HSC students take a language – and a large number of these will be their native tongue at an advanced level.
I am not surprised to also see that those countries that promote bilingual education are also the highest performing academic countries in the world. Studies have shown for years that adapting to a second language activates the brain in unique ways and perhaps the lack of this in Australia contributes to our less-than-average international ranking.
It just isn’t good enough. We can’t operate our schools under the illusion that English will be the only language of importance in the future. Studying languages should be compulsory; I don’t even care what languages they are – Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese – just something. It educates students about the world, creates a sense of curiosity and boldness and will ultimately equip students with a skill that will far outlast the Pythagoras theorem.Considering a tutor for your child? We can help! We have amazing tutors ready to go that will help your child grow in confidence, love the learning experience and ultimately realise what they are capable of. Learn more here and book their first lesson online today!
The most important skill for HSC success
Over the last ten years I have worked with countless HSC students across the state. Some of them have gone on to become state ranked students, while others have really struggled just to pass their subjects. In every situation the determining factor between success and failure has been the same thing:
Time management.
It is without a doubt the most important skill for HSC success.
I have seen the most naturally gifted students fall apart because they haven’t been able to manage their time well. Inversely, students who are not natural academics have outdone themselves with their ability to stay on top of their schedules.
There is a reason most schools give out diaries at the start of each year. It is because at some point in year 12, exams and assessments will hit you like a tidal wave and at that point it is so crucial to have a good time management system in place to ensure you prioritise what you need to get done at the right time.
Here are 5 quick tips to help HSC students manage your time well:
Use your diary: This might seem like the simplest of tips, but too many students don’t do it. Often I will sit down with a student, and they know they have homework but they can’t remember what it is because they didn’t write it down. Write absolutely everything in your diary, so you know what to do and when things are due.
Use your phone: Utilising the calendar app, create reminders when important tasks are due. Get a reminder a week before, and then a few days before. Things can get so overwhelming, so the added benefit of technology can make your life a little easier.
Come up with a study planner: Especially around exam periods, study planners ensure you cover every module in every subject, without wasting time on things you don’t need to focus on. Simply create a list of every topic you need to revise, list it in order of priorities and then divide your study time in to study blocks.
Prioritise study: Too often a student will tell me how stressed they are with the school work load because they don’t have enough time to do everything. But when I ask a few more questions it turns out they have plenty of time – they just aren’t committing enough of it to school work. They stay out late at parties, wake up late, watch Netflix for a few hours and then once they sit down to study they get a text from a friend and they go back out again.
I am not at all saying you don’t deserve time to rest and unwind – but prioritise your study times each day and make them a non-negotiable.
Make study time 100% study time: If you can maximise your productivity during study time, you will get so much more done and find the pressures of time fading away. When you study, leave your phone outside your bedroom, block out Youtube and just focus on what you are doing. Distractions will add up and steal huge amounts of time without you noticing.
Being good at your subjects is important. Working really hard is great. But they are in vain if you don’t manage your time well. Considering a tutor for your child? We can help! We have amazing tutors ready to go that will help your child grow in confidence, love the learning experience and ultimately realise what they are capable of. Learn more here and book their first lesson online today!
