This week's reflections
I finished my classroom career at a grammar school and people make assumptions about what that is like. They picture a room full of tiny professors.
They are children. I spent as much time telling them to clean their shoes and tuck their shirts in as I did anywhere else I have taught. The difference showed up in the boring parts of the week. They worked when I asked them to. They read around things without being told it was on the paper. They wrote, handed it in and did it again the following week.
That is a system, and a system is a thing you can copy.
On my mind this week
In the same way that you can’t out-train a bad diet, you cannot outwork a bad system. You can do hours and hours of a weak revision method and achieve very little.
The students I have taught who did the best were curious and they did the reps. They asked why something worked instead of writing down that it did. They wrote the essay, got it back covered in feedback and wrote another one. Nothing in that requires a particular type of brain. It’s just a system that works.
Study Tip
Pick one habit and make it small enough that you cannot fail at it.
Book one session and go to it. Send one message when your plans change. Write three questions down before you go in. Do the same thing again next week.
Four hours a week for thirty weeks beats one big weekend of cramming in May. Build the thing you can repeat.
For parents
Asking whether they are working hard gets you nowhere, because they will say yes and both of you will move on.
Better questions: What have you booked this week? What did you do in it? What are you booking next? It’s all about showing up consistently.
Quote of the week
“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practised every day.”
