As many people know, learning and concentration usually slows towards the end of the year, but not many people know why. Towards the end of the year, students often lose focus in school and tend to care less about their work. This often applies more to the eighth graders who receive their acceptance letters in early March. This leads them to believe that they no longer have to try as hard on school. Because the eighth graders lose focus towards the end of the year, many teachers are forced to speak to the students about how they still have to work hard to maintain their GPA because high schools still look at their grades from the second and third trimesters. For some students, the end of the year does not affect them until the very end of the year, which is very beneficial for their grades. For other students, focus is often lost because of the excitement of summer and other vacations that gives them time off of school. Especially for the seventh graders, who are in the most important year of junior high, breaks from school can be very important for the minds of students so they can regain the drive that was lost from all of the work of the first and second trimesters.

I interviewed a few students to get their opinions on the end of the year and how the end of the year affects them. Samuel Guerrero says that the end of the year does not affect him much, but the second and third trimesters do not end as strong as the first because for the eighth graders, high schools do not look at the second trimester as much. Caroline Mitchell, however, says that while the end of the year has not affected her yet, more towards the end of the year, students start thinking about the end of the year instead of their work. She also says that she has noticed that, while not drastically, GPAs have dropped towards the end of the year because people are thinking of the end of the year. By staying aware of this drop in attention, we can be sure that students’ grades stay consistent, or even improve, throughout the entire year.