Taking effective and understandable notes can make a significant difference in your understanding of the topics that you learn throughout the year when it comes time to revise for exams. Having a clear layout allows you to quickly digest the information in a way that is specific to how you learn. It is important to try different techniques so that you are able to learn which way works best for you.

1- Using colours
Having bright colours throughout your notes helps important titles and specific terms to stand out, helping you to see what you need to easily. For example, having specific colours for titles, definitions, statistics and info that you forget makes your note taking more structured. Colours also makes your notes nicer to look at (not that it is all about aesthetics), which encourages you to look over the information with more care and interest.

2- Cornell method
The Cornell note taking method divides your page into three sections:
– Notes – main content from class, this should take up the majority of the page
– Key ideas- this should contain any definitions, simple but important content or any questions you have. This section should be on the left hand side in a large margin.
– Summary- contain the main takeaways from that lesson in 1-2 sentences at the bottom of the page
Doing this method each afternoon after a lesson ensures you are revising the content after first learning, which is the first step towards memorisation.

3- The Feynman Technique
This is a technique that makes sure that you fully understand a topic and can apply this when it comes to exams. It works through these steps:
1. Write the concept at the top of the page
2. Explain it as if teaching a younger student
3. Identify gaps or confusing parts
4. Simplify it even further
By doing this, it easily identifies any gaps in knowledge and grasp the most important parts of the content.

Maddie Manins

Most students think that their biggest problem when studying and learning is a lack of motivation. They compare themselves to other, more successful students and think that these students do better mainly due to their strong and constant motivation to learn, something that doesnt seem to stick around for them. The truth however, is far more simple than that. Motivation isn’t what drives these students, in fact, relying on motivation is one of the fastest ways to stay inconsistant. Disipline is where the real academic gains are made. Motivation is purely an emotion, it comes and goes based on a variety of factors in your life, how you sleep, your energy, desperation, stress, or even something as simple as the time of day. If your goals and habits depend on that feeling, your progress will be unpredictable and lack any consistancy. This is why some students dont have trouble studying one week and and the next, they are majorly struggling. Successful students dont wait to feel ready, they build solid routine that carrys them through any wavering motivation, making their study habits become unaffected by mood. Building an effective routine is actaully quite simple, all it takes is a fixed study time with a controlled enviroment, a planned schedule, a small daily workload and a method of learning. When you have this level of structure and organsiation, motivation goes out the window, you arent depending on an emotion, you are simply following a system. The suprising part of all of this is that despite this process aiming to remove motivation, once you sit down, with an actual realistic plan and a clear path ahead, both confidence and motivation tend to kick in. From there momentum takes you way farther than you thought was possible. This is why consistancy beats motivation. Every single time. Small steps like 30 minutes a day always beats the monthly 6 hour burst. You dont need motivaton, all you need is structure routine and small daily goals. Thats what builds the real results, its what keeps your progress up without relying on unpredicatble emotions.

Lishai Rubinstein

Teaching others is one of the most underappreciated but powerful forms of study. When you explain a concept to another person, you’re forced to identify gaps in your understanding, clarify assumptions you didn’t realise you were making, and translate complex ideas into language that actually makes sense. This process itself is a kind of intellectual refinement: by teaching, you learn twice.
In high school, I personally found this to be one of the most effective study methods. Even though it wasn’t intentional, when my friends and peers would ask for help, I found myself becoming their tutor in the lead up to exams. This meant improving my own understanding of the material, so much so that I began to develop a kind of efficiency for explaining concepts deeply and clearly to others.
This has led directly into my time here at First Education. By teaching students, not only am I becoming a better communicator myself, but I am given the opportunity to pass along these skills to my students. By helping them achieve a deeper understanding, they become fluent enough in the ideas we are working with to be able to translate them and to pass on this knowledge to their own peers. They begin to identify their own misconceptions and assumptions and link together the concepts they have learned.
For students seeking to deepen their understanding, tutoring provides a structure that naturally pushes them beyond surface knowledge. And for tutors, the act of teaching becomes continual revision, rehearsal, and refinement. Ultimately, teaching is not just a service but a method of learning, one that transforms knowledge from something you have into something you can share.

Tyler Klinger

If you ask most students what revising looks like, they’ll probably describe something intense, sitting at a desk for hours, highlighting notes, watching the clock and hoping the information magically sticks. But one of the most effective learning tools is something far simpler and surprisingly undervalued, the thinking break.

Not a scrolling, TikTok break, not a snack break, not a “let me clean my entire room to avoid studying” break, a genuine thinking break.

A thinking break is a short pause usually just one or two minutes where a student steps away from the pressure of the task and lets their brain breath. Although it sounds insignificant, tutors see every day how these little pauses can completely change a student’s confidence and clarity.

Learning becomes harder when the brain is overloaded. Student’s often hit a wall not because the topic is impossible, but because their working memory is exhausted. A quick pause resets the system. It gives space for information to settle, confusion to calm and ideas to become clearer. In fact, some of the best answers students give in tutoring sessions appear after a brief silence where they’re simply thinking.

This is especially true for anxious learners. Sometimes a student doesn’t need another explanation, they just need a moment to process the one they’ve already heard. Thinking breaks can turn frustration into progress, panic into understanding and “I can’t do this” into “Wait… actually I can”.

What’s even better is that thinking breaks teach students something crucial, learning doesn’t have to be rushed. They realise it’s okay to pause, to reflect and to take things step by step and once they adopt this habit, revision becomes far more productive and far less overwhelming.

In tutoring, the quiet moment often matters as much as the active ones. A small pause can unlock a big improvement.

Sometimes, the smartest thing a student can do is simply stop and think.

Isabella Naumovski

Today, I got the chance to sit in on Sienna’s tutoring session with her Year 4 Maths/English student, Evie. Sienna did such a great job keeping Evie engaged and focused the whole time. She picked up really quickly when Evie was getting a bit tired and would let her have a small brain break or switch to a quick chat before getting back into the work. She also kept checking in with little quizzes to see if Evie could answer things on her own after an explanation.

They worked on time questions (reading clocks), and Sienna explained everything really clearly. She broke down the difference between the minute and hour hands and showed Evie exactly how to read an analogue clock based on where the hands were pointing. While they went through the questions, she constantly made sure Evie understood what she was saying, and she used real-life examples like, showing the time on her own watch or poiting to the clock in the room to help things click.

Overall, it was a really positive session. Sienna was patient, encouraging, and really responsive to what Evie needed in the moment. Evie stayed focused, asked lots of questions, and genuinely seemed to enjoy the lesson. It was great to see how well Sienna connected with her and kept the learning fun and understandable.

Bianca Douroudis

Most high school students do not struggle with the actual content of their subjects. They struggle with the simple act of beginning their work. When an assignment is due the next day or a test is coming up, the hardest part is often opening the book or writing the first sentence. The Two Minute Trick is a practical method that removes this barrier by lowering the mental pressure associated with starting. The idea is straightforward. Commit to doing only two minutes of work on the task in front of you. Tell yourself that after two minutes you are free to stop. This small commitment works because it removes the feeling of needing to complete a full study session and instead replaces it with a small, manageable action. Procrastination usually occurs when the task feels large or mentally demanding. By reducing the task to two minutes, the mind no longer tries to avoid it. Once you begin, momentum usually takes over and the work becomes easier to continue. Two minutes of reading often becomes ten. Writing a single sentence often becomes a full paragraph. Solving the first question in a worksheet often leads naturally to solving the next few. Even if you stop at two minutes, you still benefit because you completed the most important step, which is the act of beginning. The long term habit of starting builds consistency, reduces stress and results in better performance during busy periods. Students can apply this method immediately by choosing one subject, opening their notes and working for two minutes on a small part of the task. This could be reading a single page of a novel, attempting the first equation in a homework set or reviewing one concept from a science topic. The Two Minute Trick is effective because it removes the mental resistance that prevents progress and replaces it with simple action that is easy to repeat every day.

Samin Sadaf Hossain

I got to observe Maya’s Chemistry session. While I don’t take chemistry, I found her methods of tutoring very insightful ! The bulk of their session was going through practice questions the student had trouble with at home. Since the test was coming up, Maya focused on helping her understand exactly where and why she lost marks and how she could improve her answers. Rather than blatantly correcting the students mistakes, she would ask for their thinking process and prompt them to think why it was wrong. As such, I think it helped the student develop their critical thinking in regards to that question. By coming to the conclusion themselves, it is more likely that they wont make the same mistake in the exam. When they finished going through the exam, Maya would direct the student to more practice questions on the topics she was least confident with. As they worked through each question, the tutor broke down the tricky parts into simple steps and used quick diagrams to show what was actually happening in the reaction or calculation.

She also gave small exam tips along the way, like how to structure long-response answers or what key words markers look for. The student became more confident as she realised most of her mistakes were small and fixable. The whole session felt really supportive and practical and it clearly helped the student understand what to do differently next time.

Annaliese Lakis

Burnout can be of high risk for school students, especially year 11 and 12s when the workload starts to build up. Managing these changes to workload can be highly stressful, however, there are many strategies to reduce this. Mostly, it is important to have stints of intense focussed work, followed by intentional rest breaks.

Firstly, it is important to reduce procrastination when you are studying by breaking tasks into smaller tasks and using the Pomodoro technique can be beneficial for this. This is 25 minutes of focused work followed by a 5 minute break. It supports concentration while preventing exhaustion.

Secondly, one should establish boundaries around study time. It can feel exhausting to spend all day studying, but periodically going on your phone for lengths of time because it feels like you are in work mode the entire day. Instead, utilising the Pomodoro techniques for a few hours may be more effective. It will also allow you to maintain a work-life balance and experience hobbies you enjoy, such as socialising and enjoying time in nature.

Thirdly, schedule proper rest. Sleep is essential for memory, mood, and energy, yet it’s often the first thing sacrificed. Aim for consistent sleep routines and avoid late-night cramming whenever possible. Rest also includes taking guilt-free breaks: go for a walk, listen to music, or spend time with friends. Short periods of genuine downtime can dramatically reduce burnout.

Fourth, take care of your physical health. Regular movement, even a 10-minute stretch or walk, can lower stress hormones. Eating regularly and choosing balanced meals stabilises energy levels and prevents the fatigue that contributes to burnout.

Riva Burkett

In every tutoring session, there’s a moment when a student suddenly realises the problem wasn’t the subject – it was the strategy. They weren’t “bad at maths” or “not a science person.” They just hadn’t been taught how to learn effectively. And that’s the gap tutoring quietly fills: it builds the meta-skills schools rarely have time to develop.

Most students approach study like a marathon of memorisation. They reread notes, highlight everything in neon, and hope repetition equals understanding. But high-performance learning is a completely different game. It’s about retrieval, not review; structure, not stress; clarity, not cramming.

A good tutor trains students to reverse engineer every subject. Instead of starting with content, we start with the question style. What patterns do examiners use? Where are the predictable traps? What does a full-mark explanation actually look like? Once a student understands the “exam grammar,” even complex topics become manageable.

The second shift is teaching students to break out of passive study. Retrieval practice, micro-quizzing, spaced repetition, and verbal explanation all activate the brain in ways rereading never will. A student who can teach a concept back in their own words has already won half the battle.

But perhaps the most transformative part of tutoring is confidence. Not the empty, motivational-poster kind—real confidence built on mastery. When a student realises they can solve something that once felt impossible, it rewires their entire mindset. They start taking intellectual risks. They become curious again. They stop fearing mistakes.

Tutoring isn’t just about higher marks; it’s about creating independent learners. The goal is simple: to make the tutor unnecessary. Because once a student understands how to accelerate their own learning, they don’t just succeed in school – they succeed everywhere.

In a world obsessed with outcomes, tutoring reminds us that the real power lies in process. Teach a student content, and they’ll pass a test. Teach a student how to learn, and they’ll thrive for life.

Oliver Fletcher

In my time working as a tutor for young students, I have picked up on some useful strategies that make sessions more effective and enjoyable.

It might seem simple, but the foundation of effective teaching lies in truly understanding your students and their unique learning needs. Equally important is the level of respect you earn from them. The relationship between a tutor and their student plays a crucial role in shaping the learning experience. I always make it a priority to get to know my students from day one, engaging with their interests and taking the time to understand what inspires and challenges them, in order to figure how they can work best. I find that this strategy is often overlooked and can be ignored after the first 15 minutes of a session, but it can really make a significant difference.

It’s also essential for students to engage with the right vocabulary regularly. Helping them become accustomed to the language fosters positive habits and boosts their confidence when tackling new ideas. When students have the words they need, they can express their thoughts and articulate their ideas with assurance.

Another effective approach, that I believe is even more important with younger learners in particular, is to recognise and celebrate the effort they put into their tasks, regardless of the outcomes. If a student has put in a lot of effort to complete a task, positive reinforcement can go a long way to motivate them. Helping students connect their hard work to acknowledgement is a crucial step in nurturing an active learning environment. While encouraging more effort is vital, it’s equally important to provide them with motivation to keep trying. Praise and recognition are powerful motivators that students already appreciate; so by adjusting their focus from simply being correct to putting in their best effort can be so beneficial.

Gemma Vinciguerra