Education teaches children the basic fundamentals for success. However, not all students respond to teaching material in the same manner. For some children, academic support is the x-factor that separates average from excellence.
Academic support comes in different shapes and sizes, including tutoring or youth empowerment services. Where once upon a time there was a social stigma for families that required such services; we live in a new age. Nowadays, parents simply want their children to achieve their full potential — by any means necessary.
Why is education so important?
Educated minds learn to develop critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is how you evaluate situations in a logical, thoughtful manner. Logic is the basis for any human being to make effective decisions in his or her life.
One of the most influential figures of our time, former First Lady Michelle Obama, has surmised the power of a good education to help inspire youth today.
The ability to read, write, and analyze; the confidence to stand up and demand justice and equality; the qualifications and connections to get your foot in that door and take your seat at that table - all of that starts with education.
Today's students are tomorrow's stewards of society. It's imperative that every student receive the means to achieve his or her full academic potential. As a society, we collectively need children to develop those critical thinking skills and go on to lead productive, successful lives.
It all begins with a good education. Knowledge, mindsets, confidence, and strong work ethics are the tools that students need to achieve life-long success.
Why is academic support important for student success?
As the world emerged from the global coronavirus pandemic, expert and public analyses evaluated the collective response to the health crisis. The education sector was one of the hardest hit segments of society, and academic performance since the pandemic suggests students are in greater need of academic support.
Pandemic-induced lockdowns disrupted academic learning & development
At the height of the pandemic, approximately 1.5 billion global students were forced out of the classrooms. Within Canada, lockdowns persisted by an average of 8 to 26 weeks and were concentrated even higher in some jurisdictions — Ontario, for example, saw 33 weeks of closures between March 2020 and June 2021.
Bodies of evidence support the notion that lockdown-induced learning set many students back on their journeys to become academically successful.
EQAO evaluations have sharply dropped following lockdowns
Let's concentrate on Ontario students for a moment, which was the jurisdiction with the longest extended pandemic lockdowns. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, the last EQAO evaluations were conducted during the 2018-2019 school year. The tests were suspended for two years due to ongoing struggles with the pandemic.
In the 2021-2022 school year, the tests were reinstated, and the results speak for themselves.
Only 47% of Grade 6 students in Ontario met the provincial standard for mathematics
Approximately 52% of Grade 9 students met the same standards
This marks a dramatic drop of 23% from the previous evaluations
In the 2022-2023 school year, the numbers have marginally improved. In this school year, 48.5% of Grade 6 students met the provincial standard for mathematics, and nearly 54% of Grade 9 students did the same.
While both data sets note the slightest of improvements from the first post-COVID evaluations, the numbers are nowhere near pre-pandemic results. Lockdown learning has simply left too many students behind.
Poor academic performance worsens childhood mental health
Report cards evaluate student progress and performance. But for children who feel lost and left behind, graded evaluations are a debilitating trigger of mental health issues.
Oftentimes, students base their value on their ability to learn and comprehend information in the classroom. When they feel left behind — and poor grades signify their struggles — it's a cascading effect on their own self-worth. Students become less interested in school; they don't take their studies as seriously, and they spiral into an even deeper pit of academic decline.
How to provide academic support for student success
Students can be their own harshest critics when faced with academic setbacks. Rather than feed into their own insecurities; as parents, why not help your children become successful by investing in academic support?
Working with educational support specialists, your children can learn in a whole new way. Programs built around personalized support, childhood empowerment, and the application of educational fundamentals appeal to young minds. Suddenly, educational material is interesting to the child. When they're more interested, they retain more knowledge that can be applied for future success.
Academic support programs like Sapphire Studies are built around the ideas of empathy and understanding. This approach prioritizes the student's strengths and helps them unlearn their perceived weaknesses so that they can become more academically successful.
Instilling confidence in children empowers them to reach for the stars and go the extra mile. In essence, a personalized academic support system teaches children how to be their own teachers.
They learn how to apply the basic fundamentals of learning through problem-solving methodology. Once they learn how to create their own solutions to problems, there's no stopping academically supported children!
Interested in learning more about personalized academic support? Book a call with our Chief Learning Officer, and let's help your child achieve their full academic potential.