Learn to focus - focusing is a skill just like any other skill. While it is easier for some than others, there ARE things students can do to improve their focus. With longer classes, focus issues can be a challenge for incoming grade 9s. Click here to read more. 

updated June 2025

Learn to organize / plan / manage your time working on assignments. A system is needed in order to manage all the demands of high school, whether a phone calendar, a paper agenda, or a big paper calendar at home. Taking endless photos of things or writing a big long list of "to do's" is not the best way to organize. Try this method of planning backwards. 

Video link

Waiting until the last minute is a very bad idea for SO many reasons. 

1. It lets students fool themselves into thinking they're doing okay because they end up doing the work at the last minute. 

2. Last minute learning is not effective learning. Learning should be spread out over time. That is how the brain learns best. 

3. Procrastination doesn't actually work;  it’s really just a “cycle of low effort and low task performance because students may use procrastination as an excuse for poor-quality work.” (Peg Dawson and Richard Guare, Coaching Students with Executive Skills Deficits)

Here's a great, very popular video that uses a creative analogy to explain the problem with procrastination. 

Instead of waiting until the last minute when there's a sense of urgency, students should develop a system for managing their tasks (not letting their due dates manage them!). A feeling of urgency is actually bad because it teaches students to only work when something is imminently due, or they feel their back up against the wall. 

What students really need is to develop better daily work habits. 

See "Organize" above to learn how to manage your time on assignments. Every little step counts.

Motivational posters and speakers are nice, but not very helpful in the real world. In the brain, there's a chemical reward for a job well done or a feeling of accomplishment. That's why it's so important that students try before they expect to feel motivated. The motivation won't just fall down on them from the sky. Effort is everything. It leads to motivation. 

Here's an interesting take on motivation from a well known book on executive functions (Lyn Meltzer, Promoting Executive Function in the Classroom): 

The motivation equation

Expectation of success

                  x 

Value of the goal 

                  = 

           Motivation 

Here's a short video about how parents can help to motivate teenagers. 

Students, here are some ideas to consider to help you push your motivation forward!

It is hard to change your habits. Some habits are so automatic we do them without even thinking about them. We have many bad (not useful) habits that follow that pattern, such as watching multiple YouTube videos in a row while we're supposed to be doing homework because it’s easy to do. We want to develop good habits that we don’t have to think too much about either.  But that takes some careful planning. We can’t just HOPE it will happen.

Information like this doesn’t change habits. We need to actually do the behaviours we’re talking or writing about. That’s why we need to start small. We come up with small changes in our daily behaviours that will lead to achieving our reasonable and reachable goals - not mega-gigantic faraway goals. For example, a reasonable goal is to achieve a mark in the 70s in each course in semester 2.

Some students in grade 9 and 10 might have goals such as becoming a doctor, an engineer, a journalist, a chef. For most students at that age, they don't yet have career-related goals. That's totally fine. The goals that are most important for them are more proximal (close by), such as earning a certain mid-term mark in  course, or being able to do homework for 20 minutes without checking their phone. Whatever they are, the habits must be matched to the goals.

Forming new habits - good ones! - takes consistency and dedication. 

I recommend students start by taking an inventory of the pros (benefits) and cons (negative features) of their current habits.  That way, it is possible to identify where changes need to be made.  

As goals change, so will habits. Speak to Ms. G to work on this together!