My Sixth Form Experiance

Hey guys, so today’s blog post will be about sixth form. I will giving you advice that I wish I knew about before starting sixth form or college as the same applies. So if you’re interested carry on reading.

1.       Your subject choices

I originally took four subjects, these were: biology, chemistry, geography and welsh baccalaureate (as this is compulsory in welsh schools). This didn’t stay that way for long as I dropped biology. This wasn’t really my decision more like my teachers. As I have dyslexia it’s hard for me to see my spelling mistakes in tests straight away even when I’ve read through it a couple of times. I can normally see them when I get them back and I know where I have gone wrong. But my teacher decided that I would not be able to continue my course as I wasn’t good at what the majority of the course was written work. But my other subjects were fine. As you can probably tell I enjoy science so that’s what I went for and I’m good at it. So my advice is choose subjects you enjoy and are good at, there’s no point going for something that you’re not going to use later in life either to go into university or to go into job, like if you want a job in media don’t take physics as its work that you don’t really need and stress that just isn’t worth it.

2.       The workload

One thing that really surprised me was the amount of work each subject entailed. It’s a lot different from GCSE’s. Although at GCSE’s you’re doing like 12 subjects that is the equivalent of doing four a levels. You’ll have at least 2 tests a week between the four subjects, homework for each subject due for the next week and on top maybe even research and in between all that you should be making notes from the notes you do in class ready for mock examinations. Most of the subjects have increased in difficulty from GCSE’S as there is a lot more to understand and learn. Finally, Welsh baccalaureate. I feel like this is something I’m on the fence about. It’s not an awful lot of work at all. I finished way before the deadline was as if you spend some time over half terms doing most of the work and some of your free periods then you don’t have too much and like me you may be able to finish before the deadline and use the lesson time left to revise for your exams which takes a little pressure off. Welsh baccalaureate is compulsory in all welsh schools but I feel like if you are doing 4 or 3 subjects you have more than enough ucas points to get into a university But if you fail one or more exams then it is a good back up or crutch so you can use those points if you need to. I feel as though if they made it optional more people would take more care in the subject and actually care to take time to do the work and put effort in. so overall I think it is a good idea but it should involve more relevant things that we could take in to the “real world” like how to look our finances and how to pay bills and know about water meters and stuff like that.  There will be times where you will have more than 1 test in a day and have to complete numerous homework assignments in the same night. The secret to not having a complete meltdown is to Plan. Make sure that when you get a homework task you make a note of it and when the best time to complete it is so maybe in a free period or a night where you’re not revising. Make sure you have a planner that is week by week so you can see how much you have on every day and see the complete week together. This will help you to see what days you have time to maybe do the homework tasks to take pressure off other days.

So my advice just be prepared for the workload and use your free periods to actually do work as it will take a lot of pressure of you when it comes to exam time.

3.       Friends

When I entered sixth form two of my close friends had gone to a different sixth form and college. We ended up drifting apart for a while but then we got back in touch and everything was great. Meanwhile I still had two close friends in school. By the end of the year I had lost one of those but gained two more which was actually for the best as I am still best friends with them now. The two that go to different schools however are closer with each other and drifted from me. So my advice is that whether you go to a different school or stay at the one you’re in you will lose friends and gain some and this is the time when you will truly know who your true friends are.

So stick by the ones you have but if you drift apart, don’t worry, you will make new friends and don’t let it bother you too much just concentrate on your school work and everything will turn out okay.

That’s it for this Sundays blog sorry there wasn’t one on Thursday it has been a very busy week.

Happy blogging,

Sophie May

Xoxo