As I watch students go back to school this month, I remembered my own experience of school and, in particular, of A Levels, which got off to a bit of a rocky start (whoops!). One thing I'd have loved when I started Lower Sixth, however, is a bit of advice on staying on top of things and making the most of your education so that you can get the best grades possible for yourself and, hopefully, make things a little easier along the way!
My first piece of advice would be to invest in an academic planner or journal if you don't already have one, and to use this. And I mean RELIGIOUSLY. Write down your homework and coursework assignments (if you have them) and check it at night, just in case you've forgotten something! Alongside this, I found it incredibly helpful to write to-do lists for every day (which may be a bit TOO organised, but I promise it helps! Especially if your days seem to go on forever and you find it reallllyyy satisfying to cross things off), and a great idea is to get a whiteboard and stick it up at home with your work listed (This works particularly well if you do coursework subjects, because it's harder to forget to write those 3,000 words when there's a reminder above your desk, try as you might!)
Another technique that helped me a lot was to think of personal goals (bear with me, I don't wanna sound like your head of Sixth Form here...) every term, and write these on post-it notes which I then stuck up on my wall. These don't need to be unrealistic, don't go thinking you can learn an entire language fluently in a few weeks, but something simple, like 'hand every piece of work in on time' can be an interesting task to set yourself, and this is so important when you're doing A Levels, because you really do need those much loved Study Periods to...well...study.
My first piece of advice would be to invest in an academic planner or journal if you don't already have one, and to use this. And I mean RELIGIOUSLY. Write down your homework and coursework assignments (if you have them) and check it at night, just in case you've forgotten something! Alongside this, I found it incredibly helpful to write to-do lists for every day (which may be a bit TOO organised, but I promise it helps! Especially if your days seem to go on forever and you find it reallllyyy satisfying to cross things off), and a great idea is to get a whiteboard and stick it up at home with your work listed (This works particularly well if you do coursework subjects, because it's harder to forget to write those 3,000 words when there's a reminder above your desk, try as you might!)
Another technique that helped me a lot was to think of personal goals (bear with me, I don't wanna sound like your head of Sixth Form here...) every term, and write these on post-it notes which I then stuck up on my wall. These don't need to be unrealistic, don't go thinking you can learn an entire language fluently in a few weeks, but something simple, like 'hand every piece of work in on time' can be an interesting task to set yourself, and this is so important when you're doing A Levels, because you really do need those much loved Study Periods to...well...study.
My last piece of advice is something that I've told friends of mine and scared them with, but it really does sound worse than it is, and that is to read through parts of your textbooks every night. I did this myself during Upper Sixth, and you'd be so surprised how easily and quickly things go in if you read them just twice a week! This is the kind of thing that you can do pretty casually - I would tell myself 'I'll read half an hour of my English Language textbook, and then tomorrow half an hour of the next unit' - but I'd recommend that before doing this you read through and highlight the key areas of study. This makes the pages far less scary late at night (if you, like me, aren't an early sleeper) and means there's far less information to digest. This sounds scarier than it is, I promise, and it really does give you such a head start when you *finally* get around to revising!
I hope these helped at least a few of you out!
No comments:
Post a Comment