Balancing sport and school 

For many students, training in sport alongside their studies can be a problem. The struggles can range from the ability to manage time successfully to simply having a loss of motivation to complete tasks outside of your sport. As someone who struggled before with balancing achieving the grades I wanted by working hard to get the results I knew I could achieve in my sport and studies.  

Balancing both can bring benefits all around. Focusing on sport improves wellbeing and mental health and helps reduce stress from academic pressure. Even if not done competitively the benefit of focusing on sport during exam times is positive. The key is not to allow one to overtake the other in terms of importance.    

It is frustrating that sporting success and academic achievement both become incredibly important at the same time, around the time of GCSE’s and A levels. To help other students in my situation, this is what I did to achieve the balance I needed, still struggling sometimes to get homework finished in time but it's working better now with the ideas I followed to balance school and sport. 

Creating a timetable 

By creating a timetable, this aids in the time management aspect which should include periods to revise in, do homework and time to train in the desired sport. 

2. having an adult on board  

By working with an adult or a friend, help can be found to ensure that you’re staying on task, this will make sure that attainment is for academic and athletic success. 

3. talking to the sports coach 

Having a talk to the sports coach or teacher can help manage time and responsibilities with the help of coaches and teachers as they will often know what's best and their encouragement will help with motivation. 

4. sleep and diet 

Making sure that the diet consists of an increase in water intake and a balanced nutritious diet. This will help improve performance in both areas. 

5. keeping a watch on stress 

Stress is something that comes to all students at schools. However, for students who alongside school are trying to see sporting success feeling overwhelmed is not unusual, creating useful coping mechanisms can be able to manage stress. 

The balance can be easily worked out using time and patience.