Spring Fever: How to Stay Focused

Spring Break is fast approaching and for many, this is a time to recharge and rejuvenate. This break is so important because, as we are all aware, when we resume after this break, the pace of activity at school increases drastically. Coming up this spring we have the performing arts week in the Elementary school, the Grade 5 PYP exhibition, language trips, track and field events and the DP exams. During all of this activity, our students have the end of the year in sight, but they still have a lot to accomplish.

The question becomes, how can we motivate them to want to work hard, to want to succeed? Well unfortunately you can’t and neither can we as educators. Only they can motivate themselves. It is our job as adults to give them the best possible conditions to help them with their self-motivation.

The following steps are crucial:

1. Purpose – if they don’t know why they are doing it they will find it much harder to complete.
2. Organisation – they must have a good clear study timetable or schedule of when things need to be completed.
3. Resources – they must have their notes, and other available resources to work from (including the school libraries, the gym and, of course, their teachers)
4. Environment – for our DP students, during the hours that they are studying in the weeks leading up to exams, all distractions must be eliminated. Take away their TV, internet connection, i-pod and phone. Just while they are studying, once they have finished their study for the night they can get all those things back. It’s OK. It’s not life threatening, and they won’t hate you forever. For students involved in many of the other events and tasks to be carried out, they need to be in an environment where they feel comfortable to ask questions, make informed decisions and learn from their mistakes.

The parent’s role in all this is simply to arrange conditions as best you can to enable self-motivation to occur. As educators, we are always mindful of this, especially at the very busy times of the year, like the one that is about to happen in the final months of the academic year.

Have a safe, relaxing and rejuvenating Spring break!

Scott Jackson
Principal

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