Last updated 15 December 2020

One of the interesting things about 2020 was the way that, as a society, we had to think differently about what school and work looked like. As we worked together to manage the spread of the virus and followed the rules set out for us by the experts, many of us, including teachers and students, had to adapt to working and studying at home.

This shift in education made me take a step back and really think about my role in all of this and why it matters. As I watched parents and students wondering how they would cope if schools remained closed for a significant amount of time, I noticed a massive focus on subject content. To be clear, this focus is completely understandable. It makes sense to me that most people would be concerned about missing out on having topics being clearly explained by their teachers, or how they might go about clarifying misunderstandings when they’re not physically in a classroom with their teacher, and can’t drop in to their office at lunchtime to ask questions. 

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One way to make studying and keeping up at school less tiring is to create good habits.

Habits are automatic, so instead of wasting time and energy deciding what you want to do next, if you have habits in place you can just get on with it and keep working towards your goals.

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Having been a teacher and a tutor, I understand the importance of getting through the content in a subject. From a purely practical point of view, you either need the content from this year so that you can build on it in subsequent years, or, if you’re in your final year of school, we’re conditioned to focus on getting through everything and turning our attention to the end-of-year exams. 

However, I would argue that the areas of study skills, mindset, goal setting and career planning are more important than content knowledge.

If you have these skills in your toolkit, you can master anything.

The best example of why this is the case, is to look at what happens when students leave school and go on to further study. We all know anecdotally that many students find the move difficult. As a secondary student, you go from being in a community you know and understand, with teachers who you see regularly both in class and around the school, working in a relatively small group in your classes, to a big wide world where no one chases you up if you miss class or don’t submit your work. While this generalisation is unfair to tertiary institutions as they do have support systems in place, in most cases it is up to the student to seek this out for themselves, rather than having a teacher or coordinator tap them on the shoulder and ask them to come and see them at lunchtime so that they can help them get organised and check that they’re coping ok.

The students who thrive at university are:

• the ones who keep up with their study despite the changes to their social lives or work commitments and the move to more independent learning - STUDY SKILLS

• the ones who take responsibility for their learning and actively manage the stress of the academic year - MINDSET

• the ones who manage their time effectively and plan their study and commitments so they get the results they are aiming for - GOAL SETTING

• the ones who are in the course that they want to be in, or who recognise when the fit isn’t quite right and pivot when they need to - CAREER PLANNING

Teaching content will always be important for schools, however it is essential for students to also be explicitly taught how to study effectively and efficiently, how to be aware of and shift their mindset where appropriate, how to set relevant goals and actively work to achieve them, and how to identify how their strengths and interests are relevant to different areas of work and research the opportunities available to them. 2020 shone a spotlight on this, and it’s important that as things return to normal, we don’t forget it.