How to Survive School: A Practical Guide for Teenagers, Parents and Teachers

Thanks to all of the people who encouraged the making of this book. There are too many to mention by name, but some must be given special thanks: Danielle K Watts for life-changing advice and guidance. Ayse Enver Yusuf for championing Exam Magic and asking for more and better resources for her students. Jim and Sharon Adams for their enthusiasm and support. Scott Cohen and Liviu Babitz for their friendship and expertise. Vikki and Toby Skinner for going over the manuscript with a fine-tooth comb. Seth Godin for responding to my emails. Nick Troop for coffee, cakes and data crunching. Sherife Tayfun for walking the talk and lighting the way. Louise Barnard for her brilliant ideas. My parents for believing in me. And of course Chiara D’Anna for her love and patience.

Most of all I want to thank all of my students for challenging and motivating me to bring my best self to school.

Michael Warwick

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Why I Wrote This Book

How to Use This Book

Two Key Ideas at the Heart of This Book

Problems and Strategies

Home, Family and Friends

Problem #1: There’s too much pressure on me

Problem #2: My parents nag me and don’t understand the pressure I’m under

Problem #3: There are family problems that upset and distract me

Problem #4: I’d rather spend time with my boyfriend or girlfriend

Problem #5: I have duties at home that take up my time

Problem #6: My parents compare me to my brothers and sisters

Problem #7: There’s no quiet space to work in at home

School and Teachers

Problem #8: I find lessons boring

Problem #9: I have too much homework—I don’t have time for exam prep

Problem #10: I don’t have the right notes or resources

Problem #11: I don’t like my teacher

Problem #12: My teachers nag me and put me under too much pressure

Problem #13: I prefer to mess around or chat with my friends

Problem #14: I’ve got out-of-school clubs and sports that are important to me

Self

Problem #15: I can’t be bothered

Problem #16: TV is too interesting

Problem #17: Social networks are important to me and I spend a lot of time on them

Problem #18: I can’t not check my phone

Problem #19: I’m not organised

Problem #20: I’ve got better things to do with my time than studying—I want a life!

Problem #21: My Saturday/part-time job takes a lot of my time

Problem #22: I’m scared I’ll fail

Problem #23: I can’t concentrate

Problem #24: There’s too much to do in a short space of time

Problem #25: I’m too tired

Problem #26: I’m too stressed

Problem #27: I feel embarrassed about what people will think of me

Problem #28: I have no motivation

Problem #29: I’ve got too much on my mind

Problem #30: My hormones are out of my control

What Next?

Consultancy

Share This Book With Others

About the Author

Introduction

Do you have exams to take?

If you’re worried that you might not get the exam results you want, you’re not alone. This book came about because a teacher wanted to help his students stop worrying and get the best exam results possible.

Let’s start with an obvious fact; at least, it’s obvious once you see it. Do you realise that exams are not passed in the exam hall?

Exams are passed in your bedroom, or at the kitchen table or in the library or online, and in your classroom with your teachers. Wherever you do the preparation and study is where the exam is passed. The better the preparation, the better the exam results.

Imagine that you are a musician or an actor and you have to perform a new song or play in front of an audience. Would you practice before you went on stage? Of course you would.

The problem with practicing or studying for exams is that we’ve all got plenty of other things we’d rather be doing. Plus there’s the fear. We have fears and doubts about how our exam results could affect our future and about our ability to pass the exams. On top of it all, it’s not nice feeling judged.

Let’s put it another way: Do you accept that preparing for exams is the best way to pass them? If so, then we need to be honest about what gets in the way of doing that effectively, and then we need to use strategies to overcome those obstacles. That’s what this book is for.

Why I Wrote This Book

Here's how this book came into being: I was running an Exam Magic programme in a school and everything was going very well. The school liked the work so much that they asked me if I would take the whole of the upper school off timetable for the afternoon and ‘do something with them’. I should’ve said no. The interventions I deliver have been developed and tested over many years so that they work. To attempt an untested workshop with so many students, for a whole afternoon, was foolhardy, but I was eager to please, so I agreed, coming up with the idea of the group’s writing a book together. The students would identify all of the problems that they are grappling with and then work in teams to come up with strategies and solutions to solve them.

What I hadn’t realised was that almost a third of the students in the room were feeling very vulnerable and in some cases overwhelmed by the pressures of school. Many students were not, at that moment, able to access the resilience needed to go through the process I was facilitating, and I hadn’t thought the idea through sufficiently to support them with it.

A significant number of students disengaged from the work, and as the room lost momentum, I began to wobble.

A lot of teachers go through this kind of thing. You start to sweat, and sometimes you hear your own voice as if it’s coming from outside of yourself. It can feel like rolling a boulder uphill when the group energy splits like this. I actually got so flustered that I mistimed the workshop and finished ten minutes early, by which point I’d lost the whole group, and because we were using lots of paper and pens, the hall was a mess.

To make it even more fun for my ego, there were staff from the school in attendance who seemed to me to be watching in horror, but not really helping out. I was, after all, meant to be the big-shot expert from London!

In the end, I felt like the session went so badly, I just wanted to put the whole thing behind me and forget about it. I took all of the work the engaged students had made and stored it in my basement at home. The fact that I had publicly announced the intention to write a book slipped my mind.

Some months later, I attended a large motivational event with a very well-known British speaker. He announced from the stage that if anyone would read three books, he would personally mentor them free of charge. I took him at his word and read all three books. I got a lot out of the experience, and I’m thankful to him for that, but when I contacted his secretary to arrange the mentoring, I was met with a bemused comment about the speaker ‘often getting carried away’ and ‘saying all kinds of things from the stage’.

At first I was angry and felt cheated. How could anyone be so irresponsible? Then I realised that I had done a very similar thing. What a valuable lesson. I vowed then and there always to keep my word, and so down I went into the basement and up came the students’ worksheets. I began to piece this book together from their insights, adding ideas of my own from my experience of over a decade running workshops to help young people make the most of their education.

If anything, this book is a testament to resilience. It demonstrates that no matter how difficult things get, we can all dig deep and find