Learning & School Focus

Analyse Your Schoolwork Like Game Tape

Rhema Adelaja · National Champion & 4x DUX · June 2026 · 6 min read

Got a bad mark? Don't just get frustrated. Use the same post-match analysis you use for sport to review your schoolwork, find the real reasons for mistakes, and create a specific plan to improve.

I remember the feeling clearly. It was a first-year university biology paper. I thought I knew the material. I’d put the hours in. But when I got the paper back, the mark was a shock. It felt like a punch, the same way losing a match you were expected to win feels. My first reaction was frustration. I wanted to screw the paper into a ball and forget about it. I see the same reaction in student-athletes all the time. You get a disappointing result, you feel angry or defeated, and you just move on. You tell yourself you will just 'try harder' next time. But 'trying harder' is not a strategy. It is a wish.

In your sport, you would never accept this. After a tough loss, you and your coach sit down and watch the game tape. You do not just watch the highlights. You watch the mistakes. You analyse every decision, every movement, every breakdown in communication. You do this not to feel bad, but to get better. You do it to find specific, fixable problems. This is the mindset you must bring to your schoolwork. Your marked test is your game tape. The feedback is your data. It is time you started using it properly.

The Game Tape Mentality for School

Adopting a game tape mentality means you stop seeing a bad mark as a judgment on your intelligence. Instead, you see it as feedback on your preparation and performance. It is objective information. This shift is everything. It moves you from feeling helpless to being in control. It is a process of thinking about your own thinking. This is often called metacognition. It is the ability to step back and observe how you learn and where you go wrong. Research shows there is a powerful link between these metacognitive skills and academic results. The best athletes are masters of this. They are constantly analysing their own performance to find an edge. You need to become the same kind of analyst in the classroom.

When you look at a test paper covered in red ink, you are not looking at failure. You are looking at a map. It shows you exactly where you went wrong. Your job is to read that map and plan a better route for next time. This requires the same emotional discipline you use in sport. You have to put the frustration to one side and look at the evidence without emotion. This is hard, but it is a vital skill. Your ability to bounce back from a poor result is key. We know that mental toughness is a strong predictor of how well athletes cope with setbacks, and the same is true for your studies.

A Simple System for Your Review

So, how do you do it? You need a system. A simple, repeatable process that you can use on every piece of work you get back, good or bad. Over the years, I have refined this down to a three-step analysis that we teach to every athlete in our RHEMA LEAD programmes. It does not take long, but it makes a huge difference. You must do it as soon as you get your work back, while the test is still fresh in your mind.

Step 1: What Went Well?

This is always the first step. It is easy to focus only on the mistakes, but that is a quick way to destroy your confidence. You must first recognise what you did right. Look through the paper and find the points you earned. Ask yourself why you got those questions right. Did you remember a formula perfectly? Did you structure an essay exactly as the teacher taught? Did you manage your time well in that section?

Write these things down. This is not about making yourself feel good. It is about identifying the successful strategies you are already using. These are the things you need to protect and repeat. By starting with your successes, you reinforce the study habits that are already working. This gives you a solid foundation to build on.

Step 2: What Can Be Learned?

Now you can look at the mistakes. But you are not just looking at what you got wrong. You are looking for why you got it wrong. This is the most important part of the analysis. You need to become a detective. Group your mistakes into different types. Every mistake will fit into one of these categories.

• Concept Errors. This is where you genuinely did not understand the topic. You could not answer the question because you did not know the material well enough.
• Process Errors. This is where you misread the question, did not follow the instructions, or ran out of time. You might have known the answer, but your method was wrong.
• Careless Errors. These are the most frustrating ones. A simple mistake in a calculation, a spelling error on a key term, or forgetting to write your name. You knew the right answer, but you made a silly mistake under pressure.

Be honest with yourself. Categorise every single mistake. When you are finished, you will have a clear picture. You might see that most of your lost marks came from misreading the question, not from a lack of knowledge. That is valuable information. It tells you exactly what to fix.

Step 3: What's Next?

Analysis without action is pointless. The final step is to create a specific, concrete plan. Based on what you learned in Step 2, what will you do differently next time? 'Study more' is not a plan. You need to be as specific as a coach giving you a drill.

If you made concept errors, your plan might be: 'I will book a meeting with my teacher this week to go over photosynthesis'. If you made process errors, it could be: 'For my next exam, I will use a highlighter to mark the command words in every question before I start writing'. If you made careless errors, your plan might be: 'I will always leave the last five minutes of a test to check my calculations'. Write this plan down. Put it at the front of your notebook for that subject. This is your new strategy.

From Paper to Performance

This three-step process turns a piece of paper into a powerful tool. It transforms your relationship with feedback. It stops being personal and starts being practical. This is not about adding hours of extra work to your schedule. It is about making the time you already spend studying much more effective. It is about training smart, not just training hard.

You already have the skills to do this. You have the discipline, the focus, and the desire to improve. You have learned these things on the pitch, in the pool, and on the track. All you are doing is applying that same athletic intelligence to your academic work. This process of self-review and planning is a form of self-regulation. It is a habit that has been found to be a strong predictor of academic success, sometimes even more so than raw intelligence.

Take out your last test or assignment. It does not matter if the mark was good or bad. Spend the next fifteen minutes going through these three steps. Find one thing that went well, one clear reason for your mistakes, and one specific action you will take for next time. Start today.