How to be a Good Student

Not all people are born good students but good students can be created from developing good study habits. Being a good student takes a lot of things, but to be a good student one will always have to persevere (be persistent, refuse to stop). There are always going to be times when you get knocked down, and you will want to give up, BUT you have to get back up again. You have to be able to fight through the down times and think about what you want to achieve. It is said that practice makes permanent and this is true. If you develop the habits of being a good student, then you will become a good student.

Here are some tips to help you to Become a Good Student

Prioritize your life, that means organising everything you have to do, so that you do what is most important first. Doing well in school should be your top priority.
Listen during class. This means you have to pay attention to everything the teacher says. Keep your attention on the teacher or you might miss something really important. Take notes while you are listening, even if the teacher doesn’t say you have to.
Schedule your assignments on a calendar; this will help you remember when assignments are due.
Manage your time:
- Determine how much time you have between when you get home and when you go to sleep. Be sure to give yourself enough time to sleep so that you are relaxed when you go to school and can understand what the teacher is teaching.
- Determine how much time you will spend doing home-work and how much time you will spend revising out of the available time that you have. Be sure to include time for breaks, not too often, but enough that you don’t feel burnt out or on overload while studying
- Develop self-discipline.
- Make sure that you don’t let yourself get distracted when you sit down to study. Turn off the television. Do not answer the phone. Concentrate on what you are doing.
- Make sure that you have everything you need e.g. scrap, books, pens, pencils and calculator so that you don’t have to keep getting up to find anything.
- Let friends and family know that you are unavailable from x time till x time, and ask that they respect this time that you need to spend studying. This means no phone calls and no interruptions.
- Make sure to stick to the time management schedule that you set. Don’t extend your breaks!
- Do ALL of the homework and assigned reading. If your school has lockers, ensure that you take home everything that you need to do your homework.
- Review what was done in class that day. If you don’t understand something, be sure to make a note and ask your teacher the next day.