Starting Year 11: What to expect and how to ace it!

Get YOUR copy of the Free Parent Guide "3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart) Students Make in Exams and Assignments – and how to fix them immediately so your teen achieves their best EVER grades, with less stress." at: https://www.gradetransformation.com - - - Okay, so your teen’s going into Year 11 The start of those all-important senior years. They’ll likely have already had it drummed into them by their school and teachers, or are about to be, how seriously they need to take these next two years. So I won’t focus on that side of things here, but more the specific changes and challenges they’ll see in comparison to Year 10. ----- Get my Free Parent Guide "The 3 Huge Mistakes Even Smart Students Make in Exams and Assignments" at: www.gradetransformation.com ------ First of all, they’re gonna have to be really good at working independently. Help is still gonna be there, but they’ll have more times when they are expected to progress by themselves, For example, they may have dropped one or two subjects in their senior subject selections and will therefore have a couple of spare periods through the week where they need to prioritise their study tasks and get motivated to work efficiently when the temptation of chatting to friends or have time slip away online is all too easy to succumb to when sat in the library with all the best intentions. They’ll also be expected to work more independently in class. Be able to run with tasks without the higher levels of scaffolding or teacher input that have been there in previous years. Therefore, having excellent skills in being able to dissect the wording of a question, or break down a task and know how to tackle are going to be hugely beneficial. I’ll cover some of these skills in my Term 1 Parent event, so be sure to join me at that. In addition, larger, more open-ended and extended tasks, like essays and inquiries will become a bigger part of their study and assessments. They’ll likely have a few of these set in Year 10, but these will become even more significant this year. Not only will they need the templates and structures to help them tackle these strategically, so that they work efficiently and don’t end up spending every waking hour studying, but they also really need to pay attention to their QWC – quality of written communication. In these senior years, students are expected to be able to write with clarity and sophistication. To have a wide vocabulary and have accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar. I train students on these elements in detail – and more – in my Write Like an A-Grader Training, so go check that out –but for a couple of quick and free tips, also check out my blog post ‘Competing with classmates’ where I whined ‘how does she WRITE like that?’. So there you have it. Quite a few expectations to be aware of. That jump from Year 10 to Senior is significant, I’m not gonna lie, but it’s more in terms of the types of and quality of the tasks, and the levels of detail and analysis required in them.