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Positive Education: Resilience -Tuhinga

Nic Sullivan —

Building resilience when faced with the pressures of assessment and examinations.

Assessment and examinations can all add to the pressure on a student’s life at school, wanting to succeed and be the best we can be in our academic endeavours.

Research has shown that stress can increase for teenagers in their later years of schooling. Assessment and examinations are something that we have to deal with during this time. It is important to find ways to build resilience towards these and try to minimise the pressures that they can cause.

Students’ relationships with their peers are one way to help. The maintaining of these relationships, even when we get busy, is not only a great way to lower levels of anxiety but also are linked to higher academic outcomes.

Parents also have the power to help mitigate this assessment and examination anxiety. Continually reminding or nagging your son about the importance of these assessments can increase anxiety, which can lower academic performance. Also using fear does not help and has been linked to lower student motivations.

BUT there are ways we can help at home to counter assessment and examination stress and help build resilience. 

By building resilience it can lead to better performance and minimise stress toward academic adversity. Reminding the boys that there are a lot of different opportunities throughout the year and across their subjects for academic success and to show their ability, will help reduce anxiety. 

Each of the internal assessment opportunities and our practice examinations give students a chance to learn and best prepare for future assessments, helping to build academic resilience.

Parents and caregivers, along with teachers play a significant role in helping shape students to have a positive educational experience. It is important to build resilience and positivity in students rather than using fear, as this will minimise stress and instill confidence. This has been proven to prevent stress and anxiety in what can often be an early challenge to a young mans resilience. 

Building up a resilience towards their academic endeavours will also set them up to deal with other daunting experiences they will face later in life like an interview, job performance reviews and presentations. As being judged externally cannot be avoided we need to help our boys establish healthy thinking habits towards these challenges. These habits will also help them better deal with stress and any setbacks they may come across in their future academic assessments and life challenges.