Catch-up Camp – revision and recreation13 May 2011 |
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"Oh, you don't understand? Well it's all in the book on page 102." Often, that's how lessons can be at school. With thirty students in one class, there's little time to deal with individual students' questions in detail. But at Twente Academy's catch-up camp, there's plenty of time to do exactly that. "Here you work in small groups, the supervisor asks you really good questions and you get lots of personal attention," says Naomi Otten (18) from Utrecht. Naomi is one of the 120 secondary school pupils who are attending the catch-up camps, which focus on revision and examinations, organized by University of Twente from 1 May until 15 May. The camps last for five days and the pupils undergo preparation for their final exams. There is a strict study schedule, combined with a varied social programme in the evenings. This combination of revision and recreation attracts students from across the whole country every year. No distractions "I have problems concentrating. Ten minutes is all I can manage if I'm at home or at school. But here, two and a half hours of studying flies by before you know it." Naomi has done a catch-up camp once before at Twente, which she later found had a very positive effect on her work. "If you're not very good at a particular subject, that usually means you don't like it very much either, so you get distracted much more easily. It's a viscous circle." The catch-up camp helped her to break out of that circle. She needed a helping hand with her exams, so she put her name down for the finals camp too. Relaxing Wesley van Elst (18) from Veenendaal needs some help to get down to some studying. "At home I'll do anything to avoid studying. In the past I've even ended up tidying my room." But the combination of hard work and relaxation in the evenings gives him a real feeling of achievement. "At home I'd be up really late stressing out, but here I get everything done during the day so in the evening I can relax." Participants What kind of pupils choose to take part in a finals camp? "You see two sorts of participants - a small group who want to score higher than an eight or nine because they are hoping to study a degree programme with very strict entrance requirements. But the majority of them simply need to put in some hard work to pass their exams. At home, they spend all their time chatting or on Facebook," says Marco Timmer (23), a Biomedical Engineering student. Having helped on twelve catch-up camps already, he knows exactly what kind of students to expect. Parrot fashion So what is the secret of the camp supervisors? "They make you think for yourself. A teacher at school tells you how you have to do something, and then moves on to the next student. But you still don't understand it," says Wesley. Supervisor Alexander agrees with this: "My motto is 'no learning parrot fashion'. They usually know a lot already, but they need to put together the chunks of knowledge that they have and structure them. By asking questions, I can help them to make those links." Marco Timmer mentions another factor. "They work much more closely with us than they would with a teacher. It's great for them to see that we have to think about things too, or go and look things up. And outside class, we all just play football together." Exam stress But not all the pupils are buckling under the pressure of the exams coming up. Rabbi Shabo (19) from Enschede has no problems with exam stress. He has got sevens and a six in the courses that he is revising for. But even so, his parents think it's a good idea to give him some extra discipline and he's studying quite happily from his physics book. And with higher grades, maybe he will manage to get a place studying Dentistry.
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