Something Will Go Wrong in the First Fortnight. And?

This week's reflections

A new academic year starts this week for some of you and the week after for everyone else. Something will go wrong in the first fortnight. A teacher will be absent, a friendship dynamic will change, a lesson will be harder than expected, a sporting injury may happen and many other scenarios. None of that is unusual. What decides how the year will go is what you do in the five minutes after you find out. Answer every one of those moments with a single word. And?

On my mind this week

Plenty of you will have teachers off sick, teachers on maternity leave, long runs of cover lessons where someone hands out a worksheet and sits at the front. That happened when I taught and it will happen to you at some point over the next nine months.

Here is the part students do not want to hear. None of it is a good enough reason to get a lower grade…and this is because your teacher is not responsible for your result. They teach the specification, they set work, they mark it, they give you feedback. You get the grade. A good teacher makes that easier and a poor one makes it harder, but neither of them sits the exam for you.

So, build something of your own that works whether or not the lesson delivers. Know what your class covers this term. Turn every lesson into secure knowledge within a couple of days. Test yourself weekly without waiting to be told. Students with no system of their own are always the ones who struggle the most and then blame everyone apart from themselves.

Once you have a system in place for yourself, use the word…

Teacher off sick. And? Which resource covers that topic, when this week do you cover it, who checks you understood it?

Don’t like your teacher. And? What do they have that you need? Take the content knowledge from them that you need, the past papers, the marking. Get whatever is missing from somewhere else.

Feeling unwell, tired, fed up. And? What is the one useful thing you can still do today at a lower level than usual?

Friends not including you in their plans. And?

Parents annoying you. And?

Got four A levels. And? You chose them. Timetable them properly!

None of this means doing it alone. Asking for help is a strength. Emailing a teacher a question, putting your hand up in front of thirty people, telling your mentor you still don’t understand something from last March, all gets you where you want to go faster. Students who stay silent to look capable, are the ones who suffer.

Study Tip

My mantra for this term and the thing to rely on when a lesson leaves you feeling lost: voice memo, teach it, test yourself. Voice memo. After the lesson, record yourself reading the relevant textbook pages. Listen back when you’re on the way to school. Listen again on the way home. Listen in the gym, listen in the shower. Read it once and play it 1000 times. Teach it. Give yourself 20 mins and say, “By the end of this 20 mins, I need to be able to teach this to mum/dad.” Teaching forces you to sequence the ideas and put them together in a way that you’ll remember. Test yourself. Find one question on the topic you’ve just covered and answer it. That routine takes less than an hour and it needs no teacher, which is precisely why it protects you when the timetable falls apart.

For parents

You will hear about the staffing this term. The cover lessons, the supply teacher who set the wrong work, the class that has had three teachers since September.

Some of it will be worth raising with school. There is a difference between raising it and letting it become the family explanation for the year. A student who believes their grade depends on staffing stops working on the bit they control. Listen, sympathise once, then ask the question: given that, what does your plan look like this week?

Help them see that asking for help counts as competence.

Quote of the week

“Discipline is what is left when the timetable falls apart.”

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