Setting up a Study Timetable

RebelLAD1

Can somebody with leaving cert experience help me out here. Going into 6th year and going to attempt to create some sort of study plan and stick to it. What should be done per subject?

aimzLc2

RebelLAD1 wrote: »

Can somebody with leaving cert experience help me out here. Going into 6th year and going to attempt to create some sort of study plan and stick to it. What should be done per subject?

Different timetables work for different people! You may need to try a few methods until you find the one that suits you best

I would start out with a big page that has monday- sunday on the top and time on the left in hour slots, example if you wake up at 7 put in 7-8am , 8-9am, 9-10am and so on until you go to bed example 10-11 pm, now fill in all the slots that you are busy , getting to school , class time, getting home, eating dinner, having a shower, any sports or hobbies. Now you will see a certain amount of empty slots left per day for study.

How many subjects do you do? if you do 7 ,put one subject in each slot ,if you don't have seven slots left that day put in your most difficult subjects first and then put the other subjects in the next day , make sure your subjects are distributed evenly throughout the whole week.
Another way would be to add up all your empty slots for the week example 30 and decide how many times each subject should be done ,example biology 6 slots , business 5 slots etc.
you may want to put in an hour or two for homework or you may just include homework in the time you allocated for that subject , hope this wasn't too confusing!!

Corvo Attano

Right so first off a study plan dosent have to be an elaborate masterpiece of a plan that would rival Sun Tzu. I couldnt get one drawn up until maybe a month before the LC.

The plan should not be like your school time table. You wont cover 7 or 6 or even 5 subjects a day in a proper study. There just arnt enough hours. I had 2 a day for a day fully devoted to study. My first subject of any giving free day would double as the subject I would study if I had time after school (which you wouldnt always have). You can probably push 3 if you start early but when it gets down to real scrutiny of subjects then two a day is sufficient. It gives you plenty of time to comprehensively cover a chapter or two.

The plan should award regular breaks. You cant go for hours (until the LC is on top of you and you go supernova). Proper study is draining and if you dont break then it quickly becomes inefficient. I ran with a short 10 minute break after every slot. I would study a subject for lets say 3 to 4 hours. each hour split into a different part of the subject to keep things fresh e.g Macbeth then poetry then an article and so on. Each period was 45 to 50 mins then a 15 - 10 minute break. In this you cant just sit there. You must stimulate yourself. Get up, walk about, get a light snack and drink and go back. After each subject, and 3-4 hours is a hard time, you reward yourself with a good break. An hour or two where you have a good snack. Like a toasted sandwitch and coffee or something. And then back to your second subject and repeat until done.

You must stick to it with regimental discipline. No adding 5 minutes to breaks. The plan is to be followed as if Jesus himself wrote it. If time is up on a subject or period you move on.

The two a day plan leaves you with half of Saturday and all of Sunday to cover your weaker subjects assuming your doing 7 of them. You can go lighter on the Sundays but use them none the less.

Use this as a template and adjust to your strengths and weaknesses.
Any more questions I'll be happy to answer.

youtubeacademy

1. What I do is I break up a chunk of a subject into 'sessions'. i.e One chapter of Biology = 1 session and 1 French reading comprehension(including learning all new words) = 1 session.

2. I split each subject into sessions of roughly an equal time period(mine are about 45 minutes - 1 hour).

3. I then decide what I would like to achieve each week in each subject and see how many sessions that requires(for me it is 18). This works out as 2 sessions each weeknight and 4 each day of the weekend.

4. Each night I go home I pick whichever two I have the books home for or whichever I feel like doing(I try to do subjects I don't like e.g. Irish on a day when I am motivated)

5. I like this system because there are some nights when I get too much homework or have too much training to do any study. If I have a daily/weekly study plan I get depressed and feel as if I am falling behind and just say I'll do better next week. With this plan I just do 3 sessions the next 2 nights or do 1 extra each day of the weekend when I have time.

6. I also like it because it is so flexible, if I came home tired and feeling ready to give up then see I have to study Irish and English I would give up whereas now I sit down to my favored subjects and get work down when I would otherwise procrastinate.

7. Bear in mind there is no perfect study plan and if you use this try to get the subjects you don't like done early so you don't end up with hours of Irish at the weekend.

8. Sorry for the long explanation but I wanted to give you a detailed plan rather than saying "Just go study" or something similarly unhelpful.
I completely made this plan up myself so if you have any questions, comments or suggestions I would love to hear them