What skills do you need to succeed in school?

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 psychology and study skills.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Cheryl Talley, a psychologist at Virginia State University. She founded Project Knowledge, a research project and intervention designed to explore the best methods for instilling good academic habits in students and encouraging them to continue in higher education.

• This resource also contains interviews with Cheryl, along with Project Knowledge team members, Dr Victoria Davis, Meya Mongkuo and Jordan Windley, and offers an insight into careers in psychology. If your students have questions for the Project Knowledge team, they can send them to them online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). The team will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on the team’s research and challenges them to lead their own mentoring workshop to teach good academic habits to their classmates.

• An animation about Project Knowledge is available through the weblink, along with a downloadable script.

• In the accompanying podcast, Cheryl discusses the importance of relationships, spirituality and knowing yourself. A PowerPoint encourages students to make the most of listening to the podcast by reflecting on their own aspirations.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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