Academia 17: My Year 12 Experience
Hello my beautiful friends!
Today I have decided to write about my Year 12 experience. GCSEs are over and many Year 11s will be considering their next options (apprenticeship, Sixth Form or college). This post will cover both general and subject-specific aspects of Sixth Form. For reference, I take maths, further maths, physics and economics at A Level.
Please mind the gap.
The most common question for students going into Sixth Form is "Is there a big gap between GCSEs and A Levels?". The answer is yes. Unfortunately, Sixth Form requires a lot more work outside of lesson with both homework and independent learning (i.e. revision and wider reading); however, providing you use your free periods and stay on top of your work, stress-levels should remain low. Personally, I found the increased workload overwhelming during the first month of Sixth Form despite the fact that I was staying on top of work, but everyone is in the same position, so you will be absolutely fine if you work hard.
Friendships... 😐
For me, friendship has been the most difficult aspect of this year. All of my original friendship group took different subjects and we had different free periods, which meant we did not see each other. After a lot of drama, I found a new group of friends. A lot of friendships change during Sixth Form as people become more mature, so you may join or create a new friendship group consisting of other students in your form, lessons or elsewhere. This is okay! For a while this caused my increased low mood until I realised that it is refreshing to meet new people and at university it is unlikely that you'll remain in contact with many of your friends from secondary school anyway.
Are the lessons different?
The lessons are structured in a similar way to GCSE. However, there is more emphasis on independent learning at Sixth Form. You are expected to revise regularly (even if there is no upcoming test/exam), work on things you do not understand and do wider reading around the subject.
Subject-specific advice...
Personally, I do not find maths too difficult because it mainly builds upon GCSE knowledge. My advice would be regular practice (e.g. completing review exercises) and to ask your teacher whenever you are unsure. If you do not understand a topic immediately, do not be disheartened, but do not expect to magically understand it nearer to the exam. Your teacher explaining the topic in a different way or getting a different teacher/student to explain it may aid your understanding.
Further maths is a lot more difficult than regular maths. Similarly, I'd advise regularly practice (even more regular) and to ask your teacher whenever you are unsure.
For physics, I recommend keeping on top of your notes (e.g. writing your class notes onto revision cards after each lesson), revising these notes regularly and doing lots of questions. It is important to understand what the mark scheme requires, not only the knowledge required to answer each question, and this can be obtained by doing questions.
Again, for economics I recommend keeping on top of your notes and revising your notes regularly. On top of these, I advise reading the news regularly (e.g. via. the BBC News app) because adding context to your essay answers, especially on the Macroeconomics paper gains extra marks. Paper 3 is a context-based paper, so keeping up with the news helps with this paper too.
I hope this blog post has been useful for those considering Sixth Form next year. Feel free to ask me any further general or subject-specific Sixth Form questions and share your own experience. 😊
Today I have decided to write about my Year 12 experience. GCSEs are over and many Year 11s will be considering their next options (apprenticeship, Sixth Form or college). This post will cover both general and subject-specific aspects of Sixth Form. For reference, I take maths, further maths, physics and economics at A Level.
Please mind the gap.
The most common question for students going into Sixth Form is "Is there a big gap between GCSEs and A Levels?". The answer is yes. Unfortunately, Sixth Form requires a lot more work outside of lesson with both homework and independent learning (i.e. revision and wider reading); however, providing you use your free periods and stay on top of your work, stress-levels should remain low. Personally, I found the increased workload overwhelming during the first month of Sixth Form despite the fact that I was staying on top of work, but everyone is in the same position, so you will be absolutely fine if you work hard.
Friendships... 😐
For me, friendship has been the most difficult aspect of this year. All of my original friendship group took different subjects and we had different free periods, which meant we did not see each other. After a lot of drama, I found a new group of friends. A lot of friendships change during Sixth Form as people become more mature, so you may join or create a new friendship group consisting of other students in your form, lessons or elsewhere. This is okay! For a while this caused my increased low mood until I realised that it is refreshing to meet new people and at university it is unlikely that you'll remain in contact with many of your friends from secondary school anyway.
Are the lessons different?
The lessons are structured in a similar way to GCSE. However, there is more emphasis on independent learning at Sixth Form. You are expected to revise regularly (even if there is no upcoming test/exam), work on things you do not understand and do wider reading around the subject.
Subject-specific advice...
Personally, I do not find maths too difficult because it mainly builds upon GCSE knowledge. My advice would be regular practice (e.g. completing review exercises) and to ask your teacher whenever you are unsure. If you do not understand a topic immediately, do not be disheartened, but do not expect to magically understand it nearer to the exam. Your teacher explaining the topic in a different way or getting a different teacher/student to explain it may aid your understanding.
Further maths is a lot more difficult than regular maths. Similarly, I'd advise regularly practice (even more regular) and to ask your teacher whenever you are unsure.
For physics, I recommend keeping on top of your notes (e.g. writing your class notes onto revision cards after each lesson), revising these notes regularly and doing lots of questions. It is important to understand what the mark scheme requires, not only the knowledge required to answer each question, and this can be obtained by doing questions.
Again, for economics I recommend keeping on top of your notes and revising your notes regularly. On top of these, I advise reading the news regularly (e.g. via. the BBC News app) because adding context to your essay answers, especially on the Macroeconomics paper gains extra marks. Paper 3 is a context-based paper, so keeping up with the news helps with this paper too.
I hope this blog post has been useful for those considering Sixth Form next year. Feel free to ask me any further general or subject-specific Sixth Form questions and share your own experience. 😊
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