Prepare for grading

Hi Everyone

As you see in our calendar, grading is less than two months away, on 11 or 12 April! Assessment week is in four weeks (beginning 14 March) – that’s the week your instructor aims to give you feedback to tell you how you are progressing towards grading, and tries to give you a few key things to improve. In six weeks (beginning 28 March) we have pregrading, where your instructor decides who will grade this term, and who needs more practice.

Give yourself the best possible chance of grading – take control of your learning and preparation.

If you haven’t already, start by setting your goals for the year. Gradings are at the end of every term – when do you hope to grade, and what grade do you hope to be by the end of this year?

Then plan the rest of this term. Read your syllabus book, and know what you must perform well for grading – know your syllabus. If you want to grade at the end of this term, you should know all of the content in your syllabus by now. The next four weeks are about practising to get everything in your syllabus to the grading standard. (If you don’t know all of your syllabus yet, learn it this week. Come to class early and ask a senior for help.)

Use your training notebook (the red and white exercise book) to write your own notes and draw diagrams to help you learn and remember. Write your goals in this, too. Take a few notes at the end of every class – what did you learn in that session?

Then during assessment week you can seek feedback to work on in the two weeks remaining until pregrading. Give yourself the best chance to pass pregrading.

Older students, if you train hard, it is possible to grade each term until you reach about green belt. At that time, many students will slow down to grade every second term – but it depends how frequently you train, how hard you train, and how intelligently you train.

Train hard, grading easy; train easy, grading hard.

Younger students, our children’s syllabus is designed to enable you to grade each term if you train consistently. You must have sufficient training sessions each term to be invited to grade. Remember you must also try hard at home and at school – your behaviour is very important for International Taekwon-Do, because we are all about helping your parents build a nicer you.

Remember (as a friend in Canada tells his students):

The more you practise, the better you get!