Dear New Year 12s
As someone going into their- fingers crossed- final year of Alevels, I feel like I’m in a good position to play the big sister role and offer some advice and support for any sixth form newbies as I really struggled in those first few months and want to help lighten the load for anyone I can.
Like I said, I really struggled those first few months. I spent the first two weeks of year 12 crying, feeling dizzyingly sick in lessons, and threatening to drop out, but my parents (one of which didn’t go to sixth form, the other one having returned to education after being expelled from college) told me to stick it out. And I did. I grew closer to who is now my best friend- that’s a little rude of me, I’m very lucky to say I have two beautiful best friends I love very much- and our friendship helped give me the confidence I needed to be a much more active part of my school’s community.
So, point one. Try to stick at it.
The first two weeks are going to be difficult, especially if, like me, you’re in a new school with maybe one or two of your old friends (or none at all). But once you’ve done those two weeks, you can make it to half term, and once you make it to half term, why not make it to Christmas, and now that you’ve made it to Christmas, you’re halfway there- why not finish the year?
Sixth form won’t be for everyone, and that’s ok. I’ve had friends drop out or change schools and there’s no shame in it. But for some people, taking it that day, week, month, term at a time will solve (almost) everything.
Just note, there’s no real way to “make new friends”. The best thing you can do is stay open minded and maybe try being an active member of your classes; I made most of my friends through the discussions and debates we had in lesson, then we carried on talking once the bell went! But for those of us who are more shy, my now best friend was the extrovert who picked me out of the soggy ‘free introverts’ box. Sometimes you just have to let these things happen, sometimes you have to throw yourself in at the deep end.
Once I made my first friend- I’ll call them Goblin for this post- I had someone to share this turbulent time with, to sit with at lunch, to hide behind when all this change was changing too quickly. One of the most important things we did together was taking part in the sixth form pantomime. Now I didn’t just have a friend, but a community of people I routinely met with to participate in something I loved and was passionate about.
Being a drama student, I was roped into one or two after school clubs, it did me a world of good and helped me come out of both my dramatic and social shell. It doesn’t have to be stage-ish, but if you’re having trouble meeting people or finding a place to call home, try out a few clubs- You’re much more likely to meet like minded people, plus you’ll be practically engaging with your interests.
As a nervous student, I find it very difficult to cope in classroom environments, let alone new classroom environments. But I have a few tricks up my sleeve to help me when it gets too much:
Sit as close to the exit as possible. In some cases, you might want to sit closer to your teacher so if you need to get out you’re not shouting it from across the room, but I like sitting next to doors as it makes me feel less trapped.
Take it five minuets at a time. You have an hour long lesson? That’s just five minuets twelve times; 30 minuets is 5 minuets six times, and so on.
When are your free periods? Technically you’re meant to use them to get work done, but I spent a lot of mine either at home or decompressing somewhere I felt safe and comfortable (AKA karaoke in the drama studio with Goblin). That essay can be finished in a few hours, but it takes much longer to heal yourself from burnout.
Let your teachers know. The worst thing you can do is suffer in silence and as awkward as you may feel doing it, you have to speak up for your needs. Your education is important and you won’t learn anything if you spend all lesson trying to remember what an inhale feels like.
To elaborate on point 4, this is how you do it. Firstly, email all your teachers- or ask your school’s counselor or head of student welfare to- and tell them how you may need a different kind of support in school and what they can do to help. Instead of wordlessly skipping the lesson, email your teacher or write them a note for a classmate to pass on. Tell them how you feel and ask if they can email you the work covered in lesson or any research or reading that needs doing so you can do it outside of class. If you’re not feeling well during a lesson, because of those handy dandy emails you sent out at the start of the year, just ask your teachers if you can finish your work in a separate room, or tell them you need a timeout. Alevels are SOO different from GCSE, you are a grown up now and your teachers should treat you like one.
If all else fails, ask to go to the loo and come back once the lesson is over/ visit the aforementioned counselor-type professional when you’re meant to be in the loo/ just tell the teacher you need to see the counselor-type person and they should let you go.
This is probably the most important point of all. Speak up and ask for help. This is one of the hardest stages of your academic year, you have to lose every ounce of pride you have and ask every stupid question you need answered, you need to force your teachers and school staff to give you what you need to succeed- politely, of course. Maybe you don’t have any close friends to open up to, maybe you can’t turn to your family or guardians in a time of need, but you're in school now, so you have teachers and a multitude of services at your disposal. I talked about school counsellors/ heads of welfare, they’re a great place to go and I’ve never known of a sixth form or college that doesn’t have at least one. Honestly, I’m the reason my school’s head of student welfare is being paid- or at least I was :p.
You can turn to these staff members for anything and they are literally paid to give you 100% of their available time and effort and trained to know what to do, no matter the circumstance.
As well as this, there are options such as online counselling and websites such as Kooth, and for situations that may be a little more dire, you can always call Childline at 08001111.
It may seem scary at first, but you have to think long term when it comes to seeking help, your future self will thank you for it.
Now onto the lighter stuff.
Organisation. Bloody organisation. Every student has what works best for them and every teacher thinks they know what’s best for their students. I was doing back bends for one teacher in particular and all I got out of it was more bother. You’re going to have teachers that just hate your guts for no reason. She’s mine.
This is my preferred method of organising work:
Notebooks: for taking notes in lesson
Folders: for the mountain of paper that’s going to get dumped onto you
Here’s how I like to organise my folders (remember, this doesn’t work for everyone, but this is what I find easiest):
Purple: the basic outline. Red: a real-life example (my Literature folder)
The Folder
for subject: English Lit
overarching topic
19th Centuary Literature
a section for homeworks
e.g. essays
a section titled ‘general’
where I’d keep wider reading/research, sheets providing info on the topic (not modules), etc
module within the topic
A Play, by Playwrite
module within the topic
Poetry, by Poet
And so on.
Instead for my drama lessons, I organise my work by information rather than topic, for example:
General (dramatic technique, lantern types, etc)
Homeworks
Live theatre analysis
Practitioners
Script work
Set text 1
So on.
For Year 13, I also have seperate folders exclusively for coursework.
For revision, I have three folders for each subject where all my revision resources are stored, which leads me onto my next point.
REVISE EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE AN UPCOMING EXAM. Once you learn a topic, it will not be returned to. Your teachers will expect you to know the content you have been taught- this is why it’s so important to ask questions and seek out support as soon as you need it.
My top tip: once you’ve finished a topic, make your revision resources immediately and start practising while it's in your head.
In my GCSE years, all I’d do to revise was go over some flash cards, rewrite some notes, saunter away with a scattering of 8s and a pat on the head. Sixth form humbled me, quickly. So here’s how I revise now.
Flashcards. They’re a classic and brilliant for practising active recall. They work for everything; equations to chapter summaries, keywords to historic figures.
You can’t go wrong with a bit of active recall, here’s a YouTube video I found especially helpful on making flashcards: https://youtu.be/6HXJrfddvIE
Origami posters. Don’t worry, it’s not actual origami. This method is much better for reframing notes than recall, but it’s no less important.
Take an A4/3 piece of paper and write everything on a mini topic on one side (e.g. Hamlet, Act 1)
Fold it in half, condense the full page of notes into a spider diagram, or similar
Fold it in half again, now you have a booklet. On the back, write out all the keywords for the mini topic, on the front write the title (e.g. Hamlet Act 1)
Knowledge flowchart. This is another means of organising notes. The best way to explain this one is probably to show you the end product, but I’ll try my best to explain it too.
Take a plain piece of paper and write your topic title at the top.
Draw an arrow from the topic and write down the core of that topic- for example, for ‘Theravada Buddhism’, I’d start with the Three Marks of Existence. Then, elaborate on that, and elaborate again, and (especially if you’re making notes on Buddhism) you will soon find you’ve explained everything by explaining one thing in detail.
Here’s one I made earlier:
Blurting. Blurting is a great way to see how much you’ve absorbed from your flashcards, posters, etc. Put a timer on, take a blank sheet of paper and write down everything you could possibly remember on your topic of choice. Once the timer is up, use your notes and write down points you missed/ got wrong in a different colour- these are the things you now need to work on more closely.
Here’s a helpful video on blurting: https://youtu.be/CgrCo1J9A44
Some additional revision tips:
Make a timetable
Maybe you have after school clubs, maybe you just need some down time, my top tip for any form of time management is to write down what you’re doing when. For example, I go back to my dad’s on a Monday, so I usually get home a little later, I’m usually a bit tired, so I plan ahead of time so I can take it easy on a Monday- maybe do 30 minutes on one topic and get some homework out of the way. Some Mondays I was tired, so I’d go over one topic of flashcards (something is better than nothing). On Wednesdays however, I had a lot more time after school, so I might do two subjects in an hour, an hour on homework, and finish off the evening going over my lines for an upcoming performance.
Planning ahead of time is great as it limits decision paralysis and therefore procrastination, meaning you can fit in all your leisure activities on top of assignments and revision.
It is important, however, to make sure you’re not overworking yourself, if the information isn’t going in, nothing will come out. Best way to avoid this would be the Pomodoro Technique, which I’ll leave a video link to here: https://youtu.be/mNBmG24djoY
Create a good study environment
No matter what the aesthetic student vloggers may imply with their cinematic shots of perfectly calligraphied notes and lemon water, low lighting such as lamps or candle light (vampire wannabes) will make you feel sleepy and you. will. not. learn.
The best revision environment in my opinion would be:
A clear desk or table (even if you dump everything onto your bed, as long as your work space is clear, so is your head)
A chair you can sit comfortably in
A well lit room of about the right temperature (smother yourself in hoodies if you must, or the opposite)
Water, or similarly boring drink, to hand
Things that meet your sensory needs (music, stim toys, blue tack)
A note on this: I cannot function without background noise, so I listen to lofi music while doing school work, but I only listen to it while doing school work. This means I associate lofi music with productivity, so it puts me in the right mindset. I wouldn’t recommend listening to anything with lyrics however as this may muddle your thoughts.
Here is a link to a playlist of classical music I’m especially fond of: https://youtu.be/idJoHeHPrXA
And some background noise too: https://youtu.be/DLqkt4F0anA
Make sure everything you need is within reach, having to get up and down for stationary and textbooks is going to break your flow (I also recommend going to the loo before revising for this very reason)
To finish off the section, here are some videos I’ve found helpful for revision tips:
ASAPscience study tips https://youtu.be/p60rN9JEapg
Essay writing https://youtu.be/liyFKUFCQno
Making the most of your textbooks https://youtu.be/nqYmmZKY4sA
Active recall techniques https://youtu.be/1b9YRuifyYw
What study style suits you? https://youtu.be/cErgMJSgpv0
As well as textbooks and what you cover in class, there’s loads of helpful online resources too, don’t be afraid to check them out- and don’t be afraid to check your sources either.
Some general tips:
If your teacher gives you feedback, eat it up, absorb it like a sponge.
Do your homework/ assignments/ catch-up work/ whatever as sooon as you possibly can (as soon as it’s set is preferable). You do NOT want work to pile up.
Try to find a routine.
Use Year 12 as an opportunity to find what works best for you, apply it as soon as you figure it out.
If in doubt, jeans and a tshirt/jumper won’t get you dress coded (in most cases).
All this being said, the best thing you can do to maximise your time is to find what works for you, stick with it, and ask for help. You’re going to find this tricky, but that means you’re doing it right. Don’t be afraid of being wrong, in lessons and in life.
Obviously I’m no expert, but I wanted to share my experience, tips, and tricks with you so hopefully you’re given a head start and don’t feel as rubbish as I did in the beginning. Sixth form is now my happy place, and I hope it becomes a sanctuary for you too.
Like I said, I’m no professional, but if any of you need a big sister, I have left my messages open.
I wish you the best in your first year of Alevels <3
