Sports People Do It – Why Not Learners?

Quite often students begin the year in a casual stride and who is to blame them? After all they have just come off two months holidays.

I come from a sports training background and I can tell you that an athlete who wants to perform well will not take two months off their training year. The repercussions are too great as they will lose too much form and have to work too hard to get back to square one.

A dedicated rugby player who takes one month off during the off season will be maintaining their aerobic level of fitness with moderate exercise. When January comes around they are ready to start full swing on improving their strengths, building on fitness and working on skills. That is how you stay ahead of the pack.

I often wonder why students don’t undertake the same planning when it comes to academic performance. Most students and parents of students are willing to let the achievements of the final months of the previous year disappear through resting the brain after the school year. The brain does not need that much time to recover. In fact that length of time for recovery is detrimental. The last month of knowledge learned prior to exams has been lost and has to be relearned in the first month of the new year!

During long Christmas holidays many students maintained their academic conditioning by attending the Tuition Centre at the Hills District Police Citizens Youth Club. Some used their academic coach (their tutor) to work on their weaknesses from last year while others used the time to get a head start on the subject matter they knew was coming this year. These guys were staying ahead of the pack. Is it worthwhile? You bet it is. They will go into the new year confident and stress free. They have locked in with their coach who is helping them to perform at their peak.

We live in a very competitive world and those who rise to the top are those who are willing to go the extra mile to achieve that result. I see all too often time and effort put into young people with their sport but will that effort bring a return on investment for them? Will these skills bring them an income? Most likely not. If the same effort was put into their academic ability, or at least more evenly distributed well……