I Gotta Organise...my school subject files!
It's almost that time of year again - back to school! There's a lot to organise to get ready for the return - both for students and parents. In this post, I decided to start with how to organise your subject files and folders. Everyday, students come home with handouts & photocopies and where does this paper end up? Thrown on the kitchen counter? Stuffed down the bottom of the school bag?
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| image: publicschoolreview.com |
If this sounds like your young student then it's time to start teaching them how best to organise their time and subjects. Responsibility for learning and studying on our own is expected very early on in first year of secondary school which is a huge difference to primary school. So as well as learning lots of new subjects, making new friends and a longer school day, some twelve year olds can find it quite overwhelming to have to deal with a lot more homework, deadlines and time management. This can then continue all the way along until sixth year, when the Leaving Cert really highlights a students study habits to date.
Getting organised will help students feel more in control and will help them understand the subjects better. So no matter what year they are in or at what stage of their education they are at, it is never too late to start learning to become more organised with their study.
So here are some of my tips on organising all the paper that comes
with each subject.
1. Generally, secondary schools offer first year
students 10 – 11 subjects to bring them up to Junior Certificate. So first
thing is first – the very minimum they should have is a folder per subject – yes
11 folders! This becomes the overall category.
2. Then within each subject there are
sub-categories. There will always be a need for a ‘homework’ sub-category and an
‘exam questions’ sub-category in almost all subjects. In languages there will
always be a need for ‘vocabulary’ and ‘grammar’ sub-categories. In science they
will need an ‘experiments’ sub-category and so on.
3. After that, if you are not sure what other sub-categories
to create within each subject, look to the exam papers. I know, you may think
that September of first year is a little early to be looking at what’s on the
Junior Cert paper – but that’s what you’re aiming for. Alternatively, you could
use the contents of their textbook as a guide – particularly if they’ll be using
the one book for a few years. What are the main topics in each subject for
Junior Cert? Use this as a key to organising their files.
4.
Label, label, label every category and
subcategory.
5.
Place items in the folder in date order – most
recent to the front of the folder/ sleeve etc.
6.
Do not over-categorise. This is because 1. They
won’t remember where they've filed things and 2. It will make organising their
work difficult and will dissuade them from doing it at all.
7.
The folders or files you choose should be large
enough to hold a good amount of paper. This avoids you having to buy folders
often and keeps all their work together. Chances are the one folder is not going
to do them until third year, but avoid buying small and thin files and folders
as they won’t hold enough.
8.
Make sure you have all your supplies to help make
organising easier. They will absolutely need labels. Other useful items are: a black
marker, a stapler and staples, paper clips, clear poly pockets, file dividers,
highlighters.
9.
Make time to file. I am sure that after two
hours of homework, they won’t want to spend another minute looking at school
stuff, but spending 5 – 10 minutes at the start or at the end of a study/
homework session to straighten up their notes, will make them feel better because
they'll know where everything is. It will also make you feel better because they won't be panicing during the morning rush looking for their notes!
10. Finally parents, let your teenager decide on the
categories. They need to put their work away and they need to be able to find
it again for future study. If you do it all for them, they won’t learn how to
organise or use this system for themselves.
Are you or your teen in the process of getting organised to go back to school?
Let me know how you are finding it?
Any organising tips to share?
Have fun organising!
Sarah
