This article is aimed to help students who have to balance sport along with studies.
Sports Scholars from Year 12 have shared their experiences regarding the challenges they faced and how they overcame them during their GCSEs last academic year.
I hope those who may feel overwhelmed and stressed, regardless of what year they are in, are able to take something away from this article. Enjoy!
Key:
Frances Weir
Katie Kress
Charlotte Long
Jessica To
What sport(s) do you do, at what level and why do you enjoy them so much?
Rowing at school level. I enjoy rowing because it is fun, and I get a chance to do it with people I wouldn’t normally talk to in the school day as I train with people from different years. Also, when you have finished a race or even just a workout you get a sense of achievement.
I row at a pretty high level (I think). I enjoy rowing so much because it is a way for me to get away from stressful schoolwork, especially during exam season. It is a great way to relax whilst also doing something productive. I really enjoy the teamwork that comes with rowing and how easy it makes to meet girls who are not in your year group. I especially love racing, even if we don’t win, I am able to take something out of every racing experience.
As well as rowing I horse ride at a similar level, however I do not do many competitions. I enjoy horse riding because it is relaxing for me to have a sport that I can do once a week and not compete at, in comparison to rowing.
Swimming at British national level. I enjoy swimming as I love the sensation in the water. The sport is also a great boost to my mood, if I’m having a bad day, once I get in the pool I start to destress and it’s a great wind down at the end of the day to help me relax before I go to sleep.
What are the main ways in which sport impacts your life?
Sport has given me something to do other than just work. It has also made me a lot more active and made me more organized, as I need to get everything done before I can go and do the sport.
Mostly, sport is a stress relief for me. Sometimes I find that I am having a bad day and am not looking forward to whatever erg may be happening after school. However, most times once I have finished my workout, I have completely forgotten that I was even stressed or upset in the first place.
Training does take up a lot of my free time, but I have made some amazing friendships as nothing brings people closer together than if you’re all exhausted after a hard training session. Sport has also given me amazing opportunities such as being able to compete at a national level and to meet and see many Olympians sharing the love for the sport.
What were the main challenges you encountered regarding your sport in conjunction with revision/ exams?
In rowing there is a lot of training so balancing revision and training was hard.
Mainly, sport takes up a lot of my time in the week. This can have both positive and negative effects on me. Some weeks I was completely on top of my work and was not stressed at all about the time that I had to do my revision in. This means that I can take a ‘more the merrier’ approach to my sport and can enjoy the fact that I do so much of it in a week. On the other hand, sometimes my revision could get away from me and then the large amount of sport that I do can make it a little bit harder to schedule in time to do it.
I found it hard to balance the amount of sport I was doing with my revision – so I didn’t feel completely exhausted! – but I wanted to do enough to stay fit and for it to also benefit me whilst revising!
Trying to maintain my fitness level while also having enough time to revise for my exams.
How did you overcome this? Did you use any specific tactics?
During the exam period and before I had a routine that I stuck to. This routine included when I would work and when I would train. This made it easier for me to do all my work and still go rowing. If you plan, it is important that you stick to it otherwise you will become overwhelmed nearer the exams.
I found that scheduling my time and really sticking to that was the most effective way of staying on top of my work. My busy timetable only permitted me certain hours of a day to be studying between. I actually found this to be quite helpful, because for me, if I have a lot of time to revise, I will wait until the last minute to start my revision. The time that I set out to do my revision helped me to stop procrastinating as much as I normally would.
I created and stuck to a revision timetable which meant that I could feel confident I was doing enough work whilst working it around my sporting schedule.
Specific timetable for what subjects I would revise that day and work through the specification systematically to make sure I was revising everything that could come up on the paper, but also training allowed me to take a break from the stress of exams and revising which is definitely important as, after taking the break I found it easier to then concentrate on the content I was revising. Swimming was also great to do after a day where I had a challenging exam as I felt it was able to clear my mind so I could focus on the exams coming up instead of dwelling on the past.
What would be your main piece of advice to younger students in their lead up to exam seasons?
Still do your sport. Don’t stop during the exams because it is a good way to de-stress and take your mind off. Also talk to your coaches as they will be able to help you out if you are stressed and tell you which sessions are the most important ones and which ones you can miss if you need to.
I would advise that you make your revision tools such as flashcards as early as possible. This means that you can study your flashcards rather than be making them, which is more effective than spending hours sticking and pasting diagrams. Making your revision tools earlier in the year also means that you can spend more time doing past paper questions, which is in my opinion the best way to revise, because it shows you how to apply your knowledge in a way that will get the most marks. The most clichéd advice I will give is to not stress, because the more stressed you are the harder everything becomes. Try to do something that will relax you such as sport or watching TV. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t productive, you shouldn’t be revising 24/7 anyways. Allow yourself time to be an actual person and don’t feel guilty about it.
Spend the extra thirty minutes to create a really good timetable because having everything planned out clearly will make you feel confident with your work/sport balance.
My main piece of advice to younger students would be to remember that it’s okay to take breaks from revising to go and train or hang out with friends. What I also recommend doing is choosing two days a week that you will always train during exam seasons; I chose Friday and Sunday so I knew that after a week of stressful exams I always had some time mapped out where I could de-stress in the pool.
