As the end of the school year approaches, motivation levels are decreasing, homework gets left missing, and test grades drop as students are just ready to get to May and be excused for the summer. Keeping motivation levels high can be difficult for students, however, there are ways to stay in line and finish the year with great grades and zero missing assignments.

One way to prepare for the end of the year is to simply make a plan or schedule to stay focused. According to Morgan Markowski from Herzing University, writing down “all your deadlines, meetings, and exam dates in your planner can give you adequate time to complete each assignment.” It’s important to know when things are due, and writing that down somewhere as a reminder can help.

As a freshman, it can be especially hard to stay focused, as the freshman year isn’t as vital as junior or senior year. But having high motivation is still important to ending the school year on a good note with good grades. One freshman recalls on staying focused for the semester:

“A huge factor that plays into my motivation is my during the end of year reminder,” freshman Sloan Donahoo said. “What I want for my future is heavily dependent on how well I perform academically in high school.”

It can be hard to stay motivated as a freshman, so setting goals and reminders of what needs to be completed or what you want to do in the future can aid low motivation levels.

The high stress and low motivation doesn’t change for teachers, either. As a teacher, the amount of work and things to grade stacks up, and it can be difficult for teachers to stay caught up for their students. There’s hours of time that goes into grading and making assignments for students, but one teacher that has a trick to staying on task is one of the chemistry teachers at Lincoln East High School, Ms. Gilligan.

“I try to make sure that I am making the most of my time at work,” Gilligan said. “Just like you guys should be making the most of your time in class, I do the same thing while I’m here.”

There are a few things to remember at the end of the school year. That you start fresh next semester after summer break, or that despite how hard the workload can become, staying strong and pushing through until the end of the year is important. Ending the school year on a good note is beneficial – not only for teachers – , but students, who can end the year with no worries.