Let’s go through the common causes of motivation-itis highlighted above and what you can do about them…

If the title of this post has resonated with you, presumably you are at your wits end. You’ve tried everything to get your teen to study; good cop, bad cop, incentives (bribes?!), but nothing is working…

Remember, exam study is all about strategy. This means your teen needs to spend the vast majority of their time engaged in high yield study. This means key topics, not peripheral topics.

“For so many — too many — high school students, Maths is a subject shrouded in mystery. Teens take one look at a question and see an unknown language staring back at them. Well, Maths is another language, but just like a language, it has rules. Rules that can be learnt and followed…”

“If exam study is a sandwich, making study notes is the meat. It’s the process of making study notes that enables students to not just shove a tonne of information into their brains in a short amount of time, but to really absorb, process and retain that information…”

“An essay must be broken into paragraphs to make it readable. There is no joy to be had reading pages of unbroken text. Breaking down an essay into different sections is what allows it to flow in a logical manner. So what is the job of each part?”

“Of course every teen will have their own particular circumstances, but I have seen general trends among students who are on track to get the grades they are capable of, and those who… well… are sadly not. Over the years I have noticed two particularly common traits of students who struggle to get results at school…”