Study Leave

Part of school routine for pupils in S4, S5 and S6 at The Academy, as at other schools, is study leave, which occurs at the time of the preliminary examinations in February and again at the time of the SQA examinations themselves in May/June.

During study leave, the timetable of normal classes is suspended for examination candidates, who are not required to attend school except to sit examinations or to fulfil other commitments, as agreed with members of staff.

These notes are designed to help you make the best possible use of the very real opportunities which a period of study leave offers in helping you to achieve the best examination results you can. Your parents will be able to help you better if they, too, know what is available and what is being suggested, so please make sure that you give them the opportunity to read this leaflet.

What is available at school

Although the timetable is suspended, that certainly does not mean that teachers are not available for consultation at school or that they are no longer interested in what you are doing. If you would like to talk about a particular aspect of your exam preparation you should not hesitate to contact the appropriate teacher at school and to arrange a time to come in to discuss it. Some teachers themselves arrange extra help on particular topics for individuals or groups of pupils who would benefit from concentrating on areas of the syllabus in this way. Please do ask for this sort of help and take full advantage of opportunities that teachers offer you. Remember that without your input your teacher will not necessarily know what it is that you are finding difficult in your revision.

What you should be doing at home

Making the best possible use of a period of study leave will not only help you to do well in the examinations you are taking this year: it will improve your skills and habits so that in the future you will be able to study more effectively, whether this is at school, for your next set of SQA examinations, or at college or university, where you will find yourself studying much more frequently on your own, away from the direct supervision of a teacher or lecturer.

Study leave gives you the chance to study what you personally need to study. You set the pace, deciding what to study (and when). Of course this takes some organising: but your revision will not be influenced by the needs of others, only by your own priorities. When you are at home, your day is not divided up for you into the forty minute chunks that are so familiar at school: you can decide for yourself when to stop and start a particular piece of revision. You will find some advice about doing this later in these notes.

Effective revision

You will have had plenty of advice about revision and good study habits over the years, from your subject teachers, in PSE classes or on the S4 Study Skills day. All that these notes can hope to do is to remind you of some basic principles which you might like to take into account when planning how to spend your study leave. Always bear in mind hints and suggestions for revising your particular subjects which your teachers have given you during your course.

Among the most important things to remember is that if you have left all your revision until the start of study leave, you have almost certainly left things too late. Revision should be an on-going part of your study pattern throughout the school year and even if a teacher has not specifically asked you to revise for a particular test or assessment you should nevertheless keep refreshing your knowledge of the various subjects you are studying.

Make a plan

Having said that, there is a great deal that can be achieved during study leave, provided that you adopt a disciplined approach to it. You must make a plan and, having made it, stick to it as best you can. A great way of wasting time is to begin each revision session by drawing up a new schedule. Plan as far ahead as is sensible – perhaps a week – and be sure to include your other commitments, such as sporting activities and interests which you want to keep going during your revision period.

Allow yourself time to relax

It is not sensible to devote every waking moment to school work. If you were to do that, you would soon become tired and jaded. Allow yourself time to relax and above all, do not work for so long in the evening that your mind cannot unwind: a good night’s sleep is essential during any period of examinations.

Break the day up

As well as allowing time for relaxation, you should break the day up into manageable chunks. It is important from time to time to practise concentrating on a particular subject for just as long as you will have to during your exams. However, unless you are doing a timed exercise in this way it is generally reckoned that your studies will benefit from a break every forty minutes or so before you start work again, preferably on a different topic or even on a different subject altogether.

Avoid distractions

You will know the environment in which you can concentrate best – some people claim that they cannot work without music, for example, whilst others find it a real distraction. Television sets and mobile phones, though, should certainly be avoided by everyone if they are serious about studying: the television should be switched off and the mobile phone kept well away from your workplace.

Sit on a comfortable chair at a table or desk – if you want to, you can lounge about when you are relaxing between spells of revision, but most people cannot revise effectively whilst lying on their bed or curled up on the floor.

Be organised

Keep your room and your desk or table tidy and make sure that you have everything you need before you start. Keep books and notes from other subjects out of sight so that you can concentrate fully on your chosen topic.

Face up to difficulties

It is very tempting to spend time revising topics and subjects that you know well and to keep putting off the time when you have to tackle material that you don’t much like or find difficult. You will do far better if you meet these difficulties head on. Make a start on problem areas at a time of the day when you are feeling fresh and rested and do what you can to make progress by yourself. If you are still having difficulties, ask for help. You might phone a friend (though if your friend is revising properly you might need to leave a message!) or get in touch with your teacher at school. Whatever you do, don’t shrug the difficulty off, hoping that the topic won’t appear in your exam.

Revision is not the same as reading: test yourself

If you spend all your revision time simply re-reading or re-writing your notes, your jotters, your worksheets and your text books, you will not be making best use of the time. It is easy to develop a false sense of security about your knowledge if you just re-read this sort of material. You run the risk of believing that you understand something simply because it is there on the page in front of you.

You need to make a deliberate effort to test your understanding as much of the time as possible. There are all sorts of ways of doing this, but almost all of them involve having a pen or a pencil in your hand and using it – summarising notes, making bullet points, producing spider diagrams or mind maps of crucial points, answering test questions. The important thing is to get your brain to engage with the material you are trying to master by reprocessing it in some way that involves more than just letting your eye wander over the page. Many people find it helpful to use coloured pens and markers – but don’t spend too long making your revision material look like a work of art. The notes or diagrams or summaries you produce when revising should be clear, of course, but do concentrate on what is important – checking that you understand the topic you are working on.

Make use of on-line revision sites. “Bitesize” and “Scholar” are only two of a huge number of websites that can be used for revision and self-testing. Please use sites your teachers recommend as many will contain material that is specific to GCSE or A Level exams.

To sum up

Study leave is not a holiday. It is a golden opportunity for you to accept responsibility for your own learning and to work really hard at a crucial time in your progress through school. To a considerable extent you are on your own, planning your work sensibly and setting yourself challenges. Remember, though, that you are not entirely on your own and that your teachers will do all that they can to help you even though your regular classes are not taking place.

To contact a teacher at school, phone the office (0141-334 8558) and speak to one of the secretaries, who will be pleased to help you. Alternatively, contact enquiries@tga.org.uk by e-mail and ask for a message to be forwarded to the teacher whose help you would like.