How to stay organised and get the best grades possible

Learn how to work smarter with these tips to help you stay organised so you can get those top grades in your exams!

Get a planner

Some schools might provide you with a planner to write all your homework down in, and having a planner is the key to being organised, so don’t just shove this in your blazer pocket, never to be seen again!

If school don’t give you a planner, go out and buy one - it doesn’t have to be fancy (although there are some lovely fancy ones with all sorts of features like mood trackers in them!).

Once you have your planner, make it a habit to use it. Write down meetings, assignments, trips, deadlines, exams, even birthdays! This way you will always remember to write everything down and to check it to stay on top of all your plans and responsibilities.

It seems pretty old school, but I find having a physical planner where you write things down to be so much more helpful than using an app or the digital planner on your phone.

Timetabling

Making sure that you organise your time is just as important as being physically organised. Create a timetable of all your classes, when they are, and where they are, and stick this somewhere you will be able to access during the whole day. It could be on the back of your phone case (if you are allowed phones at school), or inside your planner or folder. This will ensure that you are on time to classes, and that you keep track of your assignments and what you need to bring with you to school the next day!

You could also create a timetable or calendar for when you are at home. Split a piece of paper or a document into sections and add in the times you are at school or doing an extracurricular activity. Make sure your timetable is placed somewhere visible so you never forget anything and can stay on time - maybe on the back of your bedroom door, or on the wall near your desk. Don’t forget to block in time to do your homework, and time to do things you love, or even just time to sit on your bed and scroll through TikTok…

Clear that bag out

We all know what its like when you are rushing to get on the bus, or to catch up with some friends after class. You just throw all your things into the bag, never to be seen again!

Before the next school year begins, sit down and tip your school bag out - I mean give it a really good shake out, and maybe even pop it in the washing machine. Sort out all of the rubbish, and keep things you need - you might even find last year’s maths homework lurking at the bottom somewhere.

Once you’ve done this, you can start to organise your bag and keep it tidy again. Buy yourself a folder for all of your spare papers, they are quite cheap and really handy for keeping your papers uncrumpled and in one place, so you never have to use the ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse again. You could also get little bags to keep random bits and bobs that you might need in, so that nothing is rattling around in the abyss at the bottom of your rucksack…

Put pens back into the pencil case, and try to keep things tidy for the rest of the year! You could do this once every half-term to make sure nothing gets lost and forgotten about until next September!

Organise by class

There is nothing worse than sitting down at your desk for a lesson, only to pull out the exercise book for the wrong subject! Having a way of distinguishing your books, whether it is a sticker in the top corner, or different colours for different subjects is a great way to stay organised.

You could also get some cheap folders from your local stationary shop, and use these to separate your revision or any spare sheets of paper you have - never lose a piece of paper again!

Digital organisation

With more and more people spending their lives on their computers, making sure that you are organised digitally is becoming increasingly vital, especially with schools moving online this past year and more schools using online learning platforms.

Make sure that you name all your documents something sensible, and that will help you to find it when you come back to look for it. For example, calling every document for Macbeth ‘macbeth.doc’ will only confuse you later on!

You could split each subject into its own folder, and then even organise further by splitting these into subtopics. So for English this could be Literature versus Language, or Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, in Science. Once you’ve done this, you will find that everything is easier to access, and easier to revise from later down the line.

I hope that these tips helped, and that you have the best school year you can! Be sure to check out the other posts on the EasyA blog for more tips and tricks on keeping organised, revising, and time-management.

Get in touch with us if you have any more questions - we look forward to hearing from you!