From the Sidelines

Integrating exercise into your child's study routine doesn't have to be complicated. Encourage them to engage in physical activities they enjoy, such as sports or even a simple daily walk. It's important to strike a balance, ensuring they have enough time for both focused studying and physical activity.

Although energy drinks might sound like a good idea to children as a huge influx of energy right before an exam or an important study session, all they do is cause your child to have what we call an ‘energy crash’ when the effects of the drink wear off and their body begins to normalise again. If this is in the middle of, or towards the end of their exam, then this is absolutely not what your child needs.

A recent study into the link between keeping hydrated and children’s performance in school and college, found that drinking just 300ml of water can boost your child’s attention by up to 25%.

At various points throughout the year, you may often see your child grappling with stress and anxiety. While it's natural for us as parents to want our children to be calm and relaxed during their learning, it's important to understand that some signs of stress can actually be beneficial.

Think about a time when you’ve needed to get to sleep but you can’t. Lying there actively thinking about needing to get to sleep is actually one of the worst things you can probably do. Unfortunately if we’re not tired and our body is not used to going to sleep at that time of night, then there’s very little you can do.

During the night as we sleep, our body uses a lot of energy stores for growth and repair, so our breakfast is used to replenish our energy levels, helping with our focus, concentration and alertness. Therefore skipping breakfast is an absolute no no if you want your child to be a high performing student.

Our children have a tendency to stay up late trying to cram in all of that last minute information. All this does is lead to stress and tiredness, meaning they can’t focus when it comes to the tough questions an hour into their exam.

It is absolutely essential to form great study habits at home, so that even when your child is not at school, they can still continue their learning and take responsibility for their own success as a student. Developing familiar routines at home for when and where they will study throughout the week is an important factor in helping to make this happen.

One of the most interesting, but least well known facts about how our brains remember information, is that as human beings we forget 90% of what we have been taught within the first 7 days, unless we go back and do something with that information to enable us to remember it.