Nine Easy Ways to Get Better Grades in School

The common question that comes to children’s minds across schools in Singapore is how they can improve their grades. No magic potion or spell can bring you good grades overnight. However, numerous ways can help you improve your grades and realize your potential. Many essential and straightforward concepts exist, which can do wonders for your grades when incorporated into your daily lives. Good habits, following a schedule, sleeping well, making a plan, etc., are a few tips to inculcate to excel in a school in Singapore and your workplace.

Here are nine easy ways, backed by research, for students to get better grades in school.

1- Goal Setting

What would grades inspire you to do? You must set academic goals and lay out smaller roadmap goals to get your dream grades to achieve life goals. For example, while your bigger goal would be to get an A+ across subjects, your roadmap goals would include attending classes regularly, completing every assignment on time, and preparing notes daily.

2- Develop Good Habits

Having breakfast and getting a good night’s sleep is essential. Breakfast is often defined as the most important meal of the day. Studies have shown that eating breakfast can improve attention and memory span, both of which are essential skills needed to learn effectively and get good grades in school.

Nothing can make up for a good night’s sleep. It is one of the most effective methods to ensure alertness the following day. Sleepy students are bound to do badly because inadequate sleep affects the person’s mood, memory, creativity, concentration, and health which naturally affects your output as a student. Getting in those few extra hours of sleep can significantly impact your attentiveness in class, eventually translating into good grades.

3- Believe in yourself and know that you can learn the Material

A lot has been written about the advantages of having a growth mindset and implementing it in a classroom. Believing that you have it in you and amping up your capability with effort results in getting better grades. Students with a growth mindset have been shown to score significantly higher grades than those focused on improving their memory.

4- Have a Purpose in life

You may attend the best Singapore Secondary school and receive impeccable international education. However, it is in vain if you only memorize and study to get grades without an actual future goal. Students who constantly link doing well at school with achieving future goals have gotten better grades. Having a purpose, like getting into an IVY league college, getting a job at Google, becoming a scientist, etc., will motivate you to study habitually and achieve the goals in reality.

5- Keep Your Phone Away in Class

A phone can be a big distraction in class. When your phone is on, it divides your focus, making learning and concentrating in class difficult. You will often find yourself gravitating towards social media apps to check people’s photos and reels and see what people are up to. It is like ‘stating the obvious, but research has proven that children who spend more time on their phones get lower grades. They could be texting, checking social media, sending emails, etc., which impacts them irrespective of previous academic achievement, sex, age, and other criteria.

6- Use Your after-school Hours Productively

Cambridge University, through a study, found what many parents and teachers had been harping about for ages. Students who spend more screen time and less time doing homework do worse in exams. The report explicitly stated that kids who spent an extra two hours in front of a screen scored 18 points less in their GCSEs, and students who spent an extra hour reading or doing homework got 23.1 more GCSE points on average. Using after-school hours to play a sport or read a good book is better than wasting time on your phone or playing video games.

7- Designate a Study Space to Practice and Prepare

The secret to getting good grades has a specified and well-organized area where you can study distraction-free. Pick a place that is both comfortable and peaceful, with an environment conducive to concentration. It could be a room in your house, the public library, or a café around the corner. But make sure things you need, such as stationery, notes, study material, etc., are easily accessible. Not spending time looking for things when you sit down to study increases productivity to a great extent, eventually translating into better grades.

Remember, practice makes a person perfect, which also holds true for grades. The more practice, the better you will perform in the exams. Prepare for a subject well; each subject will have a unique preparation method; acquaint yourself with that. For instance, to score well in math, practice math problems daily, use flashcards for science and math quizzes and literature and history, and learn how to skim through effectively to grab the idea of the text rather than going over every word each time.

8- Focus on Your Weak Areas and Clarify your Doubt

Everybody cannot be great at everything. You may find it challenging to grasp the course material in some classes, while others may be super easy to comprehend. Focus on those subjects that you are finding hard to master. Try exploring multiple strategies to narrow down what works best. If you cannot understand a topic entirely or find yourself grappling with a particular subject, seek help, clarify doubts and reach out to your teachers. Please do not wait till it is exam time. Have a Solid Review System

9- Have a Solid Review System

When you start learning new concepts and facts in a subject, it is only natural to forget what you learn before the current topic. It is very common, and there is a high chance of forgetting previous concepts and formulas. It can become a daunting situation, especially before the exams. But a terrific solution is to have a review system in place, which means you revisit the old topic once you have learned it and try to revise it periodically. Keep increasing the time gap; you will notice that you recollect most of it. By incorporating a few of the above tips and techniques in your daily life, getting good grades will become much easier than anticipated.