Parents of Hardworking Teens

The FIRST Thing Your Teen Must Do Before Starting An Assignment

• Katie Jones • Episode 144

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Ep. 144 - 

→ Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades.
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This recent Science assignment task proves why students should always START out on any assignment task with the thing they usually check LAST, if they want to:

  • Avoid wasting time and effort on things that won't earn them any marks.
  • Make the whole assignment smoother and faster to complete.
  • Give themselves the best opportunity to hit the top criteria.

 

FEATURED ON THE SHOW: 

You’re listening to The Parents of Hardworking Teens Podcast, episode 144 - How this ONE Science assignment task I recently dissected proves why students should always START with the rubric or marking criteria before they even think about starting the actual assignment and how to be much more strategic in the sequencing of tackling any assessment task.

Hey VIP’s.

Happy new year and welcome back to the podcast. I hope you and your teens have all had a wonderful break, a lovely Christmas if you celebrate it and some time to chill out and have fun with friends and family. 

I have had what is a great summer holiday for me - a combo of a bit of relaxation, some very productive work and a bit of planning for what’s ahead. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best at totally relaxing. Actually probably my husband might be the first. And Sometimes I think I should work on it - and sometimes I just decide - that’s who I am and embrace it. And this summer - I’ve embraced it:  At the end of last year, I decided to offer a 1-1 Summer Intensive. Because this has been the one summer that we had no family visiting from the UK, (they’ve all been told they can’t visit now til the house reno is finished which I’m hoping, maybe optimistically will be all done by the middle of this year - though cue me saying that again come June. And if we don’t have visitors, then we usually do a trip away take the dog and get an air bnb, take the dog and do walks and relaxation somewhere new and different. But - we’re saving up any trip away for when the bathroom is getting done or any other time when things become a bit unlivable.

So, I have two things I really want to share with you from the summer intensive experience.

Number 1 - I’ve loved doing these sessions, loved personalising everything to the students, loved that some students who may never have gotten the training, skills and strategies that they need because my group programs or the 10 Week Grade Transformation Program just weren’t a right fit for them or didn’t resonate - and the 11 students that’s I’ve been working with have all gotten so much on board, in their toolkit over these past 7 or 8 weeks, ready to start applying and actioning and honing everything as they start the new school year. From the 1st Feb, they’re moving into Phase two of the intensive - which is on the job coaching, personal support with their actual tasks and study that they’re set from their schools and subjects. And Gemma - our English-Focus coach and I will be twice a week working with them to hone and advance their skills as they apply them and reap the rewards of their summer training. I’m really looking forward to having them see all of their training in action, see the impact on their confidence and results. 

And so, 
- I’ve decided that I’m going to take on just two 1-1 students in this intensive way per term. I’m not doing more than that as it is intensive both ways. But I think it is worthwhile. Just for those who want that big chunk of up front training, and want the fastest impact and rewards, by getting the exact skills that best match their needs, and their current or really - their lacking - skillset which I’ll help determine. 

So, if this sounds good and you’d like more info, then just send an email with ‘intensive’ in the subject line and I’ll send you in more info and a couple of questions so we can both see if it’s a fit. Obviously it’s a higher price point, and it is still online, and they will need to commit a couple of hours per week, so please be aware of that, but if you think this is what your teen needs - and you want to make a big difference in a short time, then feel free to send that email for more info. 

Now, the second thing that’s come out of this - and this is for ALL of you - is that I’ve been noticing some interesting patterns in the students I’ve been working with AND some of the most common issues I’ve been training them to overcome and skills to put into action. Now, these are no different to the thousands of students I’ve worked with over the years, but I guess they’re slightly more spotlighted when working 1-to-1.

I’m going to share some of these with you over the next few episodes here on the podcast, and I’m going to start with the concept of reverse engineering and working backwards with tasks and assessments.

Now, I did a whole episode on ‘Reverse engineering for success - back in Episode 77 and I’ll link to that in the show notes and on the resources web page for this episode. But today I want to share with you what is such a BRILLIANT real life example of it in action.

Okay, so one of my summer intensive students shared with me an assignment task they’d been set to complete over the summer and we used it as a great demonstration of some critical key strategies and skills. This is what I’m talking about when I get so excited about this sort of training and coaching. The double whammy benefit of not only working on tackling that actual task, but they also in the process get to train in the concepts and skills that they can carry forward to every future task.

Now the strategy I really want to share in this episode is: knowing when to refer to and how to use any mark scheme, criteria or rubric that accompany an assignment task. 

It’s becoming more and more clear to me over time that we lay all of this out backwards. And we are basically guiding students through the process of tackling an assignment in the most inefficient way.  Because we are so used to the marking criteria - the rubric, the success criteria, whatever it is - they are all the same thing : how your teen’s work will be marked and what it will be judged against - they always get put at the end of all the info and instructions, on the back of the task sheet, or even - if it’s digital, sometimes as a separate document.

 What I would LOVE to see is the criteria on the very front page or the very first thing (not the syllabus dot points, not the learning objectives - those often are on the front page - but they are very general.) I’m talking about the actual mark scheme, the specific descriptors. As in literally - here’s the title of the assignment, here’s what we’re looking for and how you’ll be marked - and THEN - here’s how we recommend you do it, or the steps, or the sections to actually go about meeting those requirements. Because remember - an assignment or a project or an extended task of any sort is just the vehicle to demonstrate certain knowledge or skills. 

It would make sense to say here’s WHAT you need to show or demonstrate and then here’s HOW to do it.  Because the problem is, when they’re put at the back, it’s kinda giving the indirect message that it’s less important, or it’s the thing we should consider last, or almost an afterthought.  Something to just kinda check against once you’ve completed all of the instructions. And when I share with you this real life task that had been given out, then you’ll really see why this is such a terrible order to do all of this in.

Okay - so - the task was called ‘fake news’. It was a senior Science assignment for Y12 Biology. Kinda nice as a task - topical, engaging, teaching relevant skills for life in the world today and in the future. 

The task instructions were in two parts.

Part 1 - constructing a fake news article of 200 words about a topic related to Antarctica or the Southern ocean, with some categories of topics listed: diversity of marine life, threats to marine ecosystems and the threats to them, measuring and monitoring of the ocean, and climate change. 
It then gave a suggested structure, a scaffold, for the fake news article. Headline, body of the story, a few literary devices to include to make it hype-y and fake, along with some true facts to make it feel real. I’d say a pretty good way to also help educate students as to how fake news works, as well as covering some subject content.
 

And then Part 2 was writing a rebuttal of 500 words to explain why the story is incorrect. - again a scaffold was provided with bullet points of what to include and how to structure it all. Explain what was true, and what was incorrect and how or why.  Oh and they had to include a list of references at the end. 

Now, as always, I glanced over this, but I didn’t start by reading through all of this. I saw the two parts - fake news story, rebuttal piece and I flipped straight to the back and started the actual coaching and process of tackling the assignment by having us dissect the marking guide. And oh how glad we were that we did. 
Because guess what…

The rubric had nothing - zero - in there about the fake news story.
Every single criteria was related to the rebuttal.

Exceptionally clear and logical presentation of rebuttal.
We went through what makes something considered exceptionally clear - vs the next level down which was just ‘clear’.

Next: Very strong and pervasive arguments throughout, Strong logical sequence. Again what makes something strong or very strong rather than just good.

And the third one: Excellent cross checking of statements in the fake news, supported by empirical research.
Yep - we got into excellent vs the next level down of ‘good’. 

- And by the way - if your teen needs this sort of training, i.e. what makes it good vs excellent, what is considered sophisticated rather than detailed, I have an in depth, high level workshop in our member portal called ‘How to Hit the Top Criteria in Extended responses which delivers how to figure this stuff out and how to actually then deliver it. It’s included for students in my Y12 Finish Strong or Y9-11 Next Level Coaching programs, and of course for intensives as well. So much to get into with all of that. But notice what wasn’t there at all in this rubric - any marks for the fake news article. 

The only mention of it was that they have cross checked statements in that article to be able to address them in the rebuttal. So essentially, this very quickly showed that the fake news part of the task is simply there to SET UP the rebuttal. 
It’s not that we don’t need to bother with it. But, it’s only important - it should only be given time and energy in the sense that we need to construct it in a way that allows us - gives us the opportunities to do all of those things in the rebuttal at the highest levels. 

So, I immediately start to worry: - how many students are starting out, putting in a ton of time and effort into coming up with a fake news story, researching it, then adjusting it to be fake and really focusing on their persuasive writing techniques or emotive language like it said to, to only THEN move on to the rebuttal. And to only LATER realise that nothing they’ve written in that news story is getting ANY marks? The task is called fake news! The first task is writing the fake news. The rubric even has the heading fake news. So it’s understandable why students would kinda have that part of the task as the main part of the task. 
But it’s one of the best examples I’ve seen - so far - of why scrutinising the mark scheme before doing anything else is so important. 

In other words, doing the whole thing backwards. Because - as I explained to this student: we want to minimise time and effort on the fake news, maximise it on the rebuttal and really consider the whole thing backwards.

We want to actually consider all the things required in the rebuttal, actually research what would be a great topic that would allow us to fulfil all of the requirements, then make a topic decision based on that - and then plan that rebuttal out, and THEN make up a fake news story that would enable that rebuttal.

Very backwards, but VERY strategic. 

If we worked forwards, we would be choosing a topic on something we’re interested in or that no-one else is doing, then we’d - let’s say something to do with diversity of marine life in the southern ocean, then we’d be researching to find SOME facts to include, and then writing the fake news article about it, adding a couple of facts and making other stuff up, and using some emotive language and a clickbait-y headline to fulfil the task instructions. 
And so far - we’ve got zero marks. 

We’ve not hit ANY part of any criteria. 

I do get fired up with this stuff. Not because I’m having a go at whoever wrote it. I’m never doing that. Very often there are very specific assessment formats that have to be followed by teachers and schools. It’s what happens when students know and understand this stuff and how assignments and assessment really works, they can save themselves so much time, energy, effort and potentially - stress. That allows us to include primary literature references, that guides us to have a strong logical sequence of rebuttal arguments and points. That allows exceptionally clear sequencing and cross checking - and doesn’t just have us struggling to find ideally matched actual scientific published research, doesn’t leave us with only one or two points to make, and doesn’t end up with us waffling or going off on tangents because we haven’t pre-planned and pre-organised and pre-researched the thing that’s actually responsible for ALL of the marks. Both in terms of time saved AND in terms of the results they can then produce for themselves. That return on their effort. Because this student is sure going to be putting in effort. Effort on the initial research to determine a suitable topic - one that has plenty of primary literature, one that allows them to craft a fake news story. 

Can you imagine how much time this student will save by NOT starting out with the fake news story here. And how much higher the quality and standard of their final piece will be?

And if you’d love for your teen to have me doing these dissections with them, having these strategy discussions with them, and having this insider guidance and support, then this is my invite to consider coming in and training and coaching with me.  I currently have just a few spaces in my Y9-11 Next Level group, and I’m in the process of setting up a whole new Y12 cohort in Finish Strong as of course our 2025 cohort is all graduated now… or if they want that intensive, fast impact, personalised 1-to-1 experience, then like I say, I’ll be taking on just a couple of students each term for that.

 
Just email support@ rocksolidstudy.com and let me know which option you’d like more info about and I’ll get back to you personally. 


Here’s to a super-positive, productive, successful and STRATEGIC year ahead for your teen. 

Have a great rest of your day and I’ll see you back here soon. 

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Katie Jones

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