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?

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