Parents of Hardworking Teens

Ep. 131 Students really dislike the planning stage of essays and extended responses.  I get it.  It feels like an extra chunk of work, when they really just want to get going with the writing.  But that would be a mistake. Here are 3 reasons why your teen should plan EVERY extended response - whether it’s a 10 mark exam question, 2000 word essay or research inquiry or report style assignment... so...

Ep. 130 → Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. ___ It doesn’t matter how motivated you are, if don’t know what you’re doing or how you're going to do it, it's gonna be very difficult to make progress.  Overwhelm and distraction are feeling...

Ep. 129 → Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. ___ Unique is not necessarily better. In fact often, it can be worse. If it means that it’s more tricky to meet the criteria or find the information needed.  Unique is not considered as more clever by m...

Ep. 128 → Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. ___ → Get the full episode transcript and syllabus excerpt here:  https://www.rocksolidstudy.com/128 → Get Brutal Study Truth #1 at:  https://www.rocksolidstudy.com/127 This sounds brutal, but actually...

Ep. 127 → Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. ___ → Get the full episode transcript and 'Return on Effort' Graph here:  https://www.rocksolidstudy.com/127 It's no good letting students carry on thinking or studying in certain ways if...

Ep. 126 → Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. ___ → Get the 'Evidence for the Exam Success Shortcut' resource and full episode transcript here:  https://www.rocksolidstudy.com/126 ___ There are explicit teaching / direct instruction ways...

Ep. 125 Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. ___ If your teen is constantly doing their best, and sometimes you’re concerned about them burning out  OR  if your teen is NOT putting in their best and you’re concerned about that - then this episode is...

Ep. 124 Click to get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. ___ So many students THINK they're studying hard, when actually they're just staying busy and FEELING productive. This is a recipe for disappointment when the results just don't se...

Ep. 123 Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. ___ If you’ve been considering hiring a tutor for your teen, or they already have one, but things aren’t changing as much or as quickly as you’d hoped,  OR  you’ve decided not to get one, but want to know...

Ep. 122. Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. ___ How to help your teen nail their new year group - and have them: feel confident and in control,  know exactly what’s expected,  and  achieve the results that match their effort. - Without the guesswo...

Ep. 121 ___ Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. ___ Yes, the subject content will be at a higher level. Yes, they'll probably get a bit more homework. But these aren't the things I see holding students back as they progress through the ye...

Ep. 120 -  **************** Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments -  and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. **************** We're all familiar with the 80-20 rule. E.g. - We wear 20% of our clothes, 80% of the time. - 20% of our actions create 80% of our results. Here's my take (...

Ep. 119   ***************** Heads up! Register NOW for the LIVE Crack The Exam Code 2024 webinar! https://www.gradetransformation.com/code ***************** Here are 5 things you probably didn’t know about external exams, including: - how they work, - how they’re written and marked and - how your teen can turn them to their advantage. These are all things I had very little idea about until I becam...

Ep. 118 - Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments -  and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades. If your teen has ever questioned ‘what’s even the point of this task?’, or exclaimed ‘why am I having to do this?’... I want to let you know: those are actually some very strategic and smart questions!...

Ep. 117 -  Listen in on a conversation I had on the Happy Families podcast with Justin Coulson and his wife, Kylie a while ago where we talked about:          •  Study stress   •  What causes all of the stress   •  How stress isn't about having too much to do, it's about how to get it all done   •  Motivation & wellbeing   •  Life balance   •  Tips to help teens get through their exa...

- Ep. 116 - Here's why I think exams should become your teen's GREATEST STRENGTH (and what I'm doing to help make that a reality!): 1) Exams are the biggest source of stress and cause of anxiety in most teen's school life. - If they can nail exams, their stress levels will be lower (and your household will be happier!) ;) 2) Exams usually count for the biggest % of an overall m...

- Ep. 115 Listen in on a conversation I had on the Mama Mia podcast a while ago where we talked about: how to tackle big tasks  the key to studying smarter  and the three hurdles facing procrastinators.  FEATURED ON THE SHOW: Mama Mia Podcast: This Glorious Mess Follow Rock Solid Study on Facebook Follow Rock Solid Study on Instagram Get your teen behind the scenes of assessment with me in the 10...

Ep. 114 A better way for your teen to approach and think about completing tasks or answering questions, so they achieve more of those high level criteria and do it in a focused, clear and succinct way. FEATURED ON THE SHOW: Follow Rock Solid Study on Facebook Follow Rock Solid Study on Instagram Get your teen behind the scenes of assessment with me in the 10 Week Grade Transformation Program Up-le...

Ep. 113 Real life student case study: There was something subtly holding one student back from certainty and success in her Maths assignment. Listen to discover how we figured out what she’ll do differently next time (in not just Maths, but in ANY and EVERY assignment) - AND - how you can apply this with your teen in ANY of their tasks and assessments. FEATURED ON THE SHOW: Follow Rock Solid Study...

Ep. 112 I love a good plan. But, when you think about it, it's actually pretty likely that a practical plan of action won't totally go to plan, every step of the way. Unexpected things will come up. So, what happens if we EXPECT things to come up? If we plan for those things, and know what we'll do if or when they do? We stay on track and complete the plan. That's what :) FEATU...

Ep. 111 It's when we're under time pressure that we're most likely to fall back into old habits. But not this student! In this episode I share a real life skilled and strategic student case study where they INTENTIONALLY left out the introduction of their extended response in an exam, didn’t get time to go back and write it, and what that meant for their result.  Listen in to this e...

Ep. 110 We dive into how and why the skills, techniques and strategies that I talk about here every week, and train students in, are universal when it comes to your teen’s subjects, tasks and year groups. This means they can use a strategy in different ways for multiple tasks, and therefore get multiple benefits, multiple opportunities to practise and hone it, and multiple benefits and rewards! FE...

Ep. 109 Talking to me about her son, a parent recently told me this: "He’s smart in terms of subject knowledge, but I think he could improve in working smarter and being smart about his study." I see this situation a lot and thought it might be interesting - and hopefully helpful - to talk a bit about the word 'smart'. Being smart, feeling smart. Because - what does ‘smart’ rea...

Ep. 108 Did ANYONE love group work at school? Nope. Me neither. I've still not mastered it and don't have any magic or secret solutions, but I'll attempt to share: the reasons it can feel like a nightmare, some ways to try to help your teen in their mindset,  suggestions on the practicalities so your teen doesn’t end up doing the work for everyone AND gets the grade they personally...

Ep. 107 This episode is SO much for YOU, dear Very Important Parent! And, well, it's actually all about you. Rather than being about your teen and their study. It’s about the impact that having your teen sorted with their study can have on you as their parent or carer, your home and family and your relationship. So what are these 'side' benefits? And how do they show up? FEATURED ON...