Building Effective Study Habits with a Student Planner

As an educator, you know that strong study habits are essential for student success. Whether your students are navigating GCSEs, A-Levels or university, well-designed student planners  can be powerful tools to help them develop these crucial skills. 

Here’s how you can guide your students to use a planner effectively. 

Encourage a Consistent Study Routine

Help your students treat studying like any other important commitment by:

Mapping Out School Work Commitments

Encourage your students to use their planner to map out exams, assignment deadlines and key coursework dates. This gives them a clear overview of their upcoming workload, allowing them to prioritise tasks and manage their time effectively.

Building a Routine

Guide your students to block out dedicated and regular study times in their planner. Encourage them to experiment with different time slots to find when their brain feels sharpest.

Finding a Good Place to Study

Help your students identify the best study environments for their needs. Encourage them to use their planner to record what helps and hinders their concentration, then create their ideal distraction-free study zone.

Reflecting and Refining

Teach your students to track how each study session went in their planner. Encourage them to be honest with themselves and adjust their schedule accordingly to find a rhythm that works best for them.

Teaching Effective Strategies for Different Learning Styles

Optimal learning is about studying smarter, not just harder. A student planner is a great toolkit for your students to experiment with and discover what study strategies work best for their learning style. Here’s what it entails:

Creating Active Study Sessions

Encourage your students to use their planner to note down active learning strategies for each subject, such as flashcards for English, past papers for maths, diagrams for biology, timelines for history and practice quizzes for geography.

Spacing Out Studying Instead of Cramming

Teach your students about the research showing that spreading study sessions out over time is far more effective than cramming. Guide them to use their planner to space out their studies for each subject over days or weeks.

Taking Breaks

Encourage your students to plan timed breaks periodically throughout the day in their study schedule. This will help them focus better when they return to work.

Promoting Time Management and Focused Study Time

A student planner can help your students build the essential skills of focus and time management. Here’s how:

• Overcoming Procrastination – Teach your students to break down overwhelming tasks into manageable steps in their planner. Guide them to set deadlines for each stage and hold themselves accountable.
• Setting Goals – Encourage your students to be goal-driven by writing down specific, measurable short-term objectives for each study session in their planner. They should also use their planner to keep their long-term goals visible.

Fostering Supportive Environments for Success

A supportive environment can make all the difference in your students’ academic journeys. A planner can help by: 

• Forming Peer Study Groups – Encourage your students to form study groups with classmates and schedule sessions in their planner. Studying with peers can fill gaps in understanding, make studying more fun and prevent discouragement.
• Using Teachers as a Resource – Guide your students to use their planner to note the contact details of support services and times they can reach out to you or other educators for assistance. Encourage them to seek clarification, as this shows initiative.

Building Good Study Habits with Penstripe Student Planners 

At Penstripe, our fully customisable student planners are designed to support students of all ages and learning styles. They are packed with sections for skills development, wellness tracking and goal setting to help you take care of your mental and academic well-being.

Our Study Skills Diary

While our student planners are extremely helpful, teachers have shared with us that there are occasions when students encounter challenges in studying effectively. To address this, we have partnered with Inspire Education to create the Study Skills Diary, which supports the development of key study, revision and exam skills. 

The Study Skills section in our diary is designed to help ease this pressure by providing students with an opportunity to learn proven strategies for studying, revising and taking exams: 

• The Science Bit – We discuss how to work with short and long-term memory to enable better recall.
• Study Skills in Practice – We talk through a number of tools and techniques that will ensure maximum impact during study sessions and beyond to develop life-long skills.
• Performance Focus – This section develops students’ thinking to allow them to take full control of their performance.

By choosing Penstripe’s Study Skills Diaries, schools can provide students with a tangible resource designed to maximise their potential and develop crucial study skills. Contact us online to learn more about our Study Skills Diary and custom student planner solutions. Alternatively, you can email info@penstripe.co.uk or call 0113 231 0995.