Grade 11 students
preparing for their final exams of the year should aim to perform at their very
best and go the extra mile where needed, as this year’s marks will not only
help them start their final year off on a strong footing, but also make their
road a little easier come 2023, an education expert says.
“Students and parents often consider matric to be ‘the big one’ in terms of their academic journey, but Grade 11 is actually a very important foundational year, and performing well can make a major logistical and performance impact down the line,” says Wonga Ntshinga, Senior Head of Programme: Faculty of ICT at The Independent Institute of Education, SA’s leading private higher education provider.
“It is therefore
important not to cruise along if you have been doing so, thinking that you’ll
give it your all next year. Consider how seriously you will be taking your
Matric final exams, and then try and replicate that effort right now in
preparation for your Grade 11 finals.”
Ntshinga says Grade
11 should be viewed as a foundation upon which matric success is built, and is
effectively a launch pad for one’s final year of school. So by positioning that
launch pad as favourably as possible, a student will enter Grade 12 with
much-needed momentum, insight and strategy.
One of the most
important reasons for excelling at the end of Grade 11, is because these
results can be used to gain provisional acceptance into the student’s public
university or private higher education institution and qualification of choice,
says Ntshinga.
“Nobody knows what
the future holds, so if you can start your final year of school with excellent
marks, you already have a winning ticket in your back pocket. It will take
significant stress off of you to know that you are already able to start
investigating your higher education options, and start applying without having
to wait in the back of the queue until you are able to submit good marks
achieved in Grade 12.
“Furthermore, you
will be able to get applications out of the way earlier, before they start
flooding into institutions. This will free up valuable mental and emotional
energy which you can apply with laser focus to your matric studies. And
finally, if you start out poorly in matric, you then also know you have
something to fall back on while you work on improving your grades.”
Leaving
applications until later in the year will likely mean one’s options become more
limited, as spaces would already have started filling up, Ntshinga notes.
Viewing Grade 11
final exam preparations as part of the matric year will also help students
improve their matric performance, he says.
“Your Grade 11
performance, including your preparation, your composure during the writing of
the exams, and your actual grades, provide an invaluable baseline from which
you can strategise your final school year. Devising a strategy before you set
foot in the halls of Grade 12 in January will help you work smarter on the way
to peak end-of-year performance.”
Factors that should
be taken into consideration include:
- Study methods
You should be
entering Grade 12 knowing which study methods work for you and which do not.
Your last year of school is not the time to be experimenting for the first time
in this regard. Know what you are going to need to study and how you are going
to do it right from the start to optimise the work and time you put in behind the
books.
- Time management
Your preparation
now will give you insight into how much time you need to dedicate to revision
and what kind of schedule works best for you. If you find you study best at
night and do well with getting in some exercise before hitting the books, for
instance, you can apply these insights to your Matric revision schedule without
having to experiment next year.
You will also be
clear on issues that stand in the way of you doing your best. Are you a
procrastinator? Do you feel an intense need to clean your room just when your
next study slot comes up? Understanding how you stand in your own way can help
you confront and address these barriers before you sit down for your final
exams next year.
- Strengths and weaknesses
Knowing what each subject
requires of you – which ones come naturally and which ones need more work –
will help you devise the correct strategies for dealing with your work next
year. Perhaps you realise you may need to get a tutor or other support in a
particular subject from early in the year. Maybe you see that this one subject
really just isn’t going to work out, no matter what. If that is the case, you
will be able to change, but keeping in mind that only one subject may be
changed in Grade 12, and that needs to happen within the first week of the year.
