#this is aimed at my gcse maths teacher

[perfect-snaccccccc]

normalise explosive sneezing

reg: I'm so jealous of people that have little dainty sneezes. Mine could send a whole neighborhood into lockdown

james, who has never seen him sneeze: your sneezes are adorable.

sirius, remus, pandora, dorcas, barty, evan: *all snort or snigger*

*a few weeks later*

reg: *sneezes*

james jumps: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT

everyone: told you so!!!!

[candy8448]

Maths n RS

Gcse rambles

Bro these are my two least favorite subjects D:

Hate em so much

Maths was okay since paper 1 is my best paper, but i still missed out a tonna questions D: im aiming for a 5/6 cuz i dont really care so i focused for like 40 mins on the first 13 questions to try and get 100% on them cuz if you do that on each paper, you will get a grade 6 (this is for higher btw)

Question 20 i asked my friends about after, and all four of us got wildly different answers and none of us are really sure if we got it right

I got 5.5/3, but that is because i did the entire method "correct"? And just messed up the adding at the very end so if i did get the right numbers then i only lost 1 mark. But it is wild how we all just got completely different answers 0.0 i wanna go ask my maths teacher tomorrow what he thinks the answer is

For rs though they gave us haribows before, and on the desks they gave us each a tiny paper pot with 3 jelly babies which i spaced out through the test to give me a boost

Gotta hate rs. The timing is so horrible because it is 4 mini essays as well as 8 smaller essays and other 1 and 2 markers and the timing just being 1:30 when litterally english has more time for less marks is wild. My thumb was cramping constantly from holding my pen and i was in pain by the end. I finished barely with 2 mins spare and i was writing nonstop since the start. =_=

"Love thy neighbour" "protect the ummah" and "and eye for an eye" was spammed everywhere and saved my life

(I did aqa themes a,b,d,e btw)

But the rs questions this year were a BLESSING (hehe) i genuinely think i could get a 8 or even a 9 if i wanna push my hope, and i was fine with just a 4 lol (i would have died if the power and conflict 12 marker was about the WMDs)

IM SO GLAD RS IS OVER!!!

Hehe not me being glad when im in a too religious family anyway and can never escape 0.0

Second subject just done forever!!

[redinbluee]

Ranting about my GCSES for the billionth time on my blog

I finished my GCSES, I'm so happy they are done but I'm absolutely terrified for results day. i find it difficult to judge whether I did good or bad in an exam as my brain loves to be a little delulu and trick me , so i really don't know how to feel.

I'm sure i'll def get a 9 for art becoz I got marked 190/192 for the entire thing which I am so fucking happy about, but I'm scared for the other subjects.

I previously set a goal that I had to get seven 9s out of 10 GCSES, but now I'm really beginning to doubt myself

I got 9s for five subjects in my mocks and I'm scared that I might even do worse than my mocks as I am currently feeling less confident about my real exams than my mocks, which I'm quite sad about

Generally, I tend to get 9s in sciences but I barely scrape the grade boundary every time. I am scared for physics- (especially) as I think I messed up on paper 1. (I do IGCSE edexel) I will also have to pray that the bio mark scheme will not nonsensical bs this year

But what I'm truly terrified about is maths (edexcel IGCSE) and geography (AQA). I fucked up maths paper 1 and I only got 1 end question completely right, I think I got half marks for two others. Not only that, I rushed through the early questions, which is bad as I make careless mistakes very easily. Paper 2 was better, but only slightly. I got an 8 in my mocks which was bad as I desperately, desperately need a 9 to solidify my decisions as I will be doing maths for A level, and getting an 8 would shatter my dreams

Geography paper 1 was easy, but it was a mess at the same time. I write slow so I only had 5 minutes left to complete the whole of glaciation. I think I only got like four marks out of the whole section. Paper 2 was the best paper imo, I hope I got most right. Paper 3 was eh, I also didn't really finish, ( I needed to write 3 more sentences in the last question and I didn't fully finish a 6 marker). I will just have to pray to the geography gods that this won't bring my marks down. The thing is, the exams weren't even hard, I was just so fucking slow- (I'm really pissed)

English was also eh for both lang and lit for me. I have never been good at english since it's kind of my second language, (it's my first language now, but it wasn't four years ago, I'm chinese). I was only aiming for a 7, which is reasonable to my standards, but I'm scared that I won't. I do merchant of venice and sign of four, which are both such irrelevant books, and we got quite shit questions. I found this kinda unfair as the popular ones like Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Christmas carol, mr jekyll and mr hyde were really easy according to most people. Our questions, unfortunately were really eh. This would raise grade boundaries :(. I have always been bad at poetry, I nearly shed a tear when I saw my last duchess in the exam as I barely revised for it. My teacher never properly taught us this poem as well (it was the least annotated one in my anthology) so I barely had any context. I also played it safe and compared it with Ozymandias. My slow-writing ass also ran out of time to do the dumb 8 marker in the end, which wouldn't help at all. Unseen was also meh, I only got to write 1 page and a bit more. The only essays that truly went well is An Inspector Calls, and maybe Merchant of Venice

Lang wasn't any better, everything I wrote was just so average and general. None of my question 5s were also outstandingly good, which is unfortunate. As a whole, I was lacking in AO2 for all four papers which will also pull my mark down.

French was a mess. I did quite reasonable in all papers, except... the listening paper. I did so so terrible in the listening paper, and I am scared that I failed it- which will make me fail the entire french gcse. I do not want to see a U on my results.

DT has always been my strong subject, but unfortunately, paper 3 went so bad (I do CIE). I am going to pray that paper 1 and my coursework ( which I am quite sure I did well in) will carry as I did absolute dogshit in paper 3. I need to get a 9 in DT, it is a must.

Thats it ig

[further-from-maths]

Alright. I think I’ve worked some stuff out now.

Essentially I’m just going to take the L 😔

My issue was mainly with computer science. I wasn’t enjoying it and I felt completely unmotivated in lessons as it just felt the same as GCSE. I realised that I couldn’t really picture myself in an IT job, which completely crushed me.

What I’m planning to do now is continue with my course as it is, sticking with Maths Analysis, because I realised that it doesn’t matter if I don’t get a 7 in it. I know it’s impossible for someone like me, so if I aim for a 6, I think I can be happy.

My teachers have been incredibly supportive. My compsci teachers have been giving me some trickier activities, so now I’m learning SQL during lessons instead of Python, which I appreciate :) Both of my wonderful maths teachers have been full of great advice, too.

I’m not going to apply to Oxbridge. I’m going to look for different universities that are more interested in the whole me, if I can.

I suppose I should also take the L and start reading more things about my subjects outside of school. Psychology makes me tick, according to my therapist, so perhaps I should invest into that some more. Maybe look into some university options there that don’t require biology.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at. I’m going to (finally) update the blog’s banner, and I’ll start posting more regularly for more of my subjects. We’ve got some regularity going on now, and I’ll need to be working on consolidation a lot more now that we’ve mostly finished our first units.

I can’t wait until after the holiday season. I’m so busy right now. I can’t wait for my schedule to free up so I can spend time on things I enjoy, like playing d&d and other games. I bought Spiritfarer recently, and so far it’s been lovely <3

[uncontrolledfission]

day 64 of 100 days of productivity 💌

average school day! i got my maths test back, 32/40 which is ok but not what i was aiming for. i lost THREE explanation marks which would have taken me to an A* and every other mark i lost was just silly tbfr. but it’s ok.

i collected my gcse certificates from my old school yesterday and was met with a shock. one of my grades went up? i’m going to enquire into this because i’m not sure if it’s a misprint or something. but the idea of actually having nine 9s and one 8 for my gcse grades is exciting. but i’m still very proud of my actual results’ day grades.

i got a message from my best friend, verity, at lunch, saying my old physics teacher at my secondary school had authorised me visiting the school’s society of physicists. i went! it was just so bittersweet. i had so much fun. i was sat next to my old crush and best friend for that hour we spent calculating the cost of raising a child. it felt weird, being back in that classroom again. it was a lot like home to me back in year 11. but we move on!

it’s been a lovely day. more so than usual.

- J

[wilstudies]

Get a grade 9 in a language GCSE!

Please note:

1. These tips are almost entirely applicable to any AQA language at GCSE. 2. Modern Foreign Languages at GCSE Level is anywhere from A2 to B1 (dependant on the tier and grade) on the CEFR scale, but, there is no official equivalent.

In November 2018, whilst in Year 10, my teacher saw that I was excelling in French, with my extensive knowledge of tenses and idioms. So, she proposed that I’d do the January mocks, alongside Year 11, despite not knowing more than half of the subject content. Then we’d see where I’d go from there.

I followed the AQA exam board, higher paper. Specification. You can find the Kerboodle textbook I used, here.  

Here’s what I did:

Throughout the year, I was also studying the Year 10 content (Theme 1 - Identity and culture) in class.

In my own time, each month I’d cover one or two units, completing the more challenging activities on each page of the textbook. Luckily, each unit was only 4 double-page spreads long.

In January I completed my mocks. This was the first time I had ever sat in an exam hall, so it was really daunting to be doing it with a bunch of kids who were older than me, even though I knew I had enough knowledge. Overall, I got a secure grade 8, in my mocks, despite not knowing half of the course content.

I also did “pre-exam mocks”, two weeks before each exam. These consisted of specimen papers which are notoriously harder, so my results looked almost exactly the same as past papers, which was upsetting as I couldn’t see that I’d actually improved. But practice is practice!

MY ACTUAL GCSE RESULT: 

With a lot of work. I managed to achieve a grade 9 (the top mark, higher than an A*), which was insane. I’m so, so proud of myself, and grateful for all of the teachers that supported me!!!

^Edit from 25/08/2019.

LISTENING

In my opinion, listening is based purely on practice and knowing the exam technique that works for you.

To practice: 

frenchpod101 intermediate listening comprehension

Going through every specimen track and listening activity I could find - pausing it after each sentence, saying it once in French, then translating it into English. I’d do this in the shower, on the way to school, wherever.

Know your vocab!

My exam technique:

In the 5 minutes reading time: underline keywords and themes in the questions. This time goes very quickly, but I’d also try to jot down a few synonyms in the French section too.

Multiple choice questions: the process of elimination; key vocab; negative and positive tonality and opinion words - watch out for negative structures!

Completing the sentences: note down words said in French or translate each sentence into English in your head, then remember it when it comes to writing it down.

French section: fill each sentence with key French words that you hear. Don’t worry about accents, unless it helps you determine the word.

Remember each track plays twice.

READING

The January Mock: I didn’t know much of the course content, so I struggled with the translation. I also circled and placed a question mark near any words I didn’t know, as it was a mock and my teacher would be able to note down any translations for me. I think what boosted my grade, to a 9 for this paper, was knowledge of grammar.

T/F/NM questions are usually a gamble. Just look for explicit information and know your negative formations.

Texts change their minds often: look out for counter-arguments and opposing exclamations

Use the method of elimination for multiple choice: rule out if there’s no mention. Be wary that a text can mention an option, but say it wasn’t that.

Texts often refer to things mentioned prior.

If you know a certain type of texts are your kryptonite (it was the classical stories with dialogue, for me), then download as many of that genre as you can. Understand the way speech and dialogue works, and the structure, before you tackle the vocab.

Many say skim read and don’t read the whole thing, but I found it easier to translate big chunks in my head as I went along and lightly annotate each text, which just comes with practice.

WRITING

Top tip: don’t go any more than 10% over word limits!!!!!!! Teachers say they have to mark all of it - no they don’t. If you do double the word limit, your last few bullet points could come after the cut-off point, cutting off access to half of the marks!!! 

90 WORD - 99 words maximum! About 20-25 words per bullet point.

150 WORD - 165 words maximum! About 75 words per bullet point.

Which brings me to mention, that you must cover every bullet point: those are your content marks, which cover about half the marks of each question.

90 WORD Question (16 marks)

Content - 10 marks: Making sure your writing covers each bullet point enough.

Quality of Language - 6 marks: Using interesting vocabulary, such as “malheureusement”.

Stick to about one page.

If you’re giving an opinion, great, just stop there. If you explain it too much, you risk going over your word limit.

150 WORD Question (32 marks)

Content - 15 marks: Every. Bullet. Point. Detailed.

Range of Language - 12 marks: get in those adjectives, idioms and grammatical structures!

Accuracy - 5 marks: correct basic tense conjugations (present, past, future simple/future proche)

In order to hit all of these I came up with a mnemonic checklist, and it scored me full marks in a specimen paper I did for my teacher! And I made it into a cute phone background, so I’d start to remember it, I still can now, hehe! You can find it here. If that doesn’t work, then download it here.

SPEAKING

Know your question words! (x)

For the roleplay and photocard, my teacher printed off me a load of practice cards in bulk and annotated two or three every day, using the planning techniques mentioned below.

Roleplay - 2 minutes; can be any theme. 

When planning, try to avoid writing out answers, but just keywords and gaps for you to fill in with pronouns or articles etc.

Keep it brief, one sentence per bullet point, but cover each part of each bullet point. 

Photo card - 3 minutes (aim to speak for at least 2). 

Plan with a small spider-diagram of nouns, opinions, anecdotes etc. for each known question. 

Use one or two prepped anecdotes for the prepared questions - e.g. where you went last year, who with, what you did. 

For the unknown questions, keep it short and sweet and fill up any time with opinions and reasoning.

General conversation - 5-7 minutes. 

Lie and make up stories! Be creative and use the words and structures you know.

I was a little extra and I prepared every theme as flashcards. You can’t get away with only revising your chosen theme! 

I made flashcards that could cover several types of questions: I had bullet points of topics and keywords on one side and a sample paragraph on the other. 

Pretty sure I made about 80 flashcards oops.

I also went through the mark scheme and see which areas I could secure marks in and which areas I needed to improve.

VOCAB

Learning vocab is SO important!

I started by making spreadsheets of jumbled word lists from the specification and doing a colour-coded match up. 

You can access a pdf of all of the vocab grids here. There might be the odd word missing due to copy-pasting errors, but if so, don’t stress, just look it up in a dictionary and note it down - sorry in advance!!!

Then with the vocab that I had to look up in a dictionary, I added to a Quizlet and wrestled it into my noggin. 

You can find the Quizlet here.

Remember that:

sauf - except

puisque - since

presque - almost

GRAMMAR

To me, learning tenses was like learning formulae for maths. So find a way to learn rules like that, if it’s easier for you.

e.g. Conditional Tense = subject + (future/conditional stem + imperfect ending)*

*note that future stems are the same as conditional stems.

Know your DRMRSPVANDERTRAMP verbs, and their past participles. These verbs go with ÊTRE and always agree with the subject.

Know your auxiliary and irregular verbs.

MUST KNOW: avoir, être, aller, faire, vouloir

HELPFUL: devoir, pouvoir, vivre, boire, voir, dire, savoir

OTHERS: mettre, prendre, venir, écrire, lire, recevoir

I learnt these by making flashcards, and then brain dumping them on paper over and over again until they stuck - my teacher thought I was insane, madly scribbling away.

Memorise some key structures that can be used in writing and speaking. 

If you want 7+ structures, find them here.

MISC TIPS

Always write notes about improvements and errors in practice papers and mocks.

Find a native french internet friend.

In my opinion, music, movies and TV shows aren’t great for revision. However, if you begin to understand them, they are a great confidence boost.

I highly recommend the Skam France series, which you can find with and without les sous-titres (subtitles) here.

And here’s my french music playlist on Spotify.

MORE ASSISTANCE

I’m happy to offer my assistance to anybody who needs it, pop me a dm or an ask if you think others will find it useful too. 

Here’s some ways I could help:

Finding some resources about a certain topic (videos, worksheets, mindmaps) - I have them all backed up hehe

Sending you some of my past answers

Sending you pdf of my general conversation/irregular verb table flashcards

Marking practice answers

Talking to you in french

Etc. etc.

Thank you for reading! Please reblog to help any others that might find this useful. If any of the links are faulty, please pop me a dm, and I’ll get them sorted asap!! 🥐

-Wil x

[homeschoolbase]

Maths teacher looking to help

Maths teacher looking to help

Hi all,

Hope you're all safe and well.

I'm a maths teacher and am looking for a way in which I can help students during the Covid19 period in particular, especially since students are at home now.

One way in which I was planning on doing this was to create a YouTube channel consisiting of short 5 minute videos on different topic in Maths. For example I would start with Algebra. I aim to produce short 5 minute videos on each key concept (e.g. 5 minute video on adding like terms, another on expanding brackets, another on simultaneous equations and so on).

��

I plan to initially start with secondary students who are/ will be taking their GCSE's before moving onto A Level and Primary students hopefully.

The thinking behind this is that these videos can be used as introductions to each topic - which could also help parents homeschooling their kids in understanding concepts better themselves. The short nature of the videos are designed to combat a low attention span.

As a teacher I'm very eager to help out where I can

These are just my thoughts - let me know what you all think? All feedback is welcome.

Thanks,

Dave

View Poll

[newusernamepending]

Probably my proudest moment is when I was helping with this enforced after school homework session thing for students predicted to fail GCSE maths. I really disliked the teacher in charge of it (yet he was head of maths in the school lmao) and when I first arrived he gestured to a group of boys and told me not to bother with them because they didn’t want to learn and I was better focussing my efforts where they were actually appreciated.

A couple of weeks in, I arrived and sat down beside one of the boys who “didn’t want to learn” and was just like “OK, we are going to do this one question. I’m not going to get up until it’s done.” And I sat there, answering every question with things like “what do you think?” or “well, what are you aiming for here?” and making sure he didn’t get distracted until he was finished. Every so often he’d ask for a break and I’d tell him he could have five minutes to do whatever he liked once he’d done the question. (It was not particularly long.)

Eventually, after nearly half an hour, he finished. It was a fairly long winded method and lacked a lot of the “tricks” that would have been taught, but he came up with it himself and he understood it. I gave him his five minute break, and afterwards he got the rest of the questions in the section done using the same method within about ten minutes.

...The teacher attempted to tell him off for not working during his break and did not look best pleased when I said I’d told him he could have a break but hey. It worked.

[morganapengdragon]

An English guide to fanfic 1

So I've read a lot of fic set in England lately, by writers who don't have anyone to 'brit pick' what they've written. But everyone deserves to be able to write stuff set in this hellhole of a country so if you don't have/want a brit picker but still want some general advice I'm gonna make a series of posts which might help with making your fic sound a little more natural. I'm gonna start with education because that's the one I've seen people have most problems with.

This is a long post so be warned

Education

There are 3 main parts of the school system (for comprehensive schools in England, I know it's different for rich people and people in Scotland/Ireland/Wales).

Primary school:

Primary school spans ages 4-11 and the years are

Reception: ages 4-5

Year 1: ages 5-6

Year 2: ages 6-7 (some schools make a split after this point, with the younger years referred to as 'infant' school and the older years referred to as 'junior' school)

Year 3: 7-8

Year 4: 8-9

Year 5: 9-10

Year 6: 10-11

A couple of information tidbits:

A lot of schools teach sex education in year 5 and 6. They tell you what sex is and what periods are. The year is split into boys and girls. They don't really talk about gay people, trans people or contraception.

It's not very common now but some schools will do a SATS exam in year 6. The grades go from 1-5 with 5 being the highest. They mean nothing but we all used to get stressed about them anyway.

Kids can also choose to do an 11+ exam if they want to go to grammar school. I never did it so I can't help you there. Some places in the country put more emphasis on the importance of grammar school than others (looking @@@ Kent) and some places don't have any grammar school at all.

Hard hitting insults when I was a kid were things like 'nerd' and 'weird'. We don't really use 'geek' much. 'Damn' and 'hell' aren't swear words here and kids will sometimes say them.

Most primary schools have uniforms

Secondary school:

Secondary school ages are 11-16 and the years are

Year 7: 11-12

Year 8: 12-13

Year 9: 13-14

Year 10: 14-15

Year 11: 15-16

There are 4 MAIN types of secondary school (afaik)

Comprehensive schools (like the one I went to) are your standard school. You just kind of have to live close to it to get in.

Grammar schools work kind of like comps but you have to pass the 11+ exam. Not everyone takes this exam (I never did, my closest grammar school is fuck off miles away). Apparently you get a better education there or something. Idk man but they like to make fun of the local comprehensives.

Private/public school. You have to pay to go to these types of school. I don't really know the ACTUAL difference between private and public but from what I can tell, public is more expensive and fancier. I think their version of primary school is called prep school?? All of the years work differently and every time a public school kid tries to tell me something about their education its gets more confusing. Rich people.

Boarding school. This is basically a private school but you live there and it costs more money than all of my possessions put together. There are quite a few, with some of the most famous being Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc. They are usually either all boys or all girls schools (those three are all boys schools). Rich people.

More detailed infos:

Year 7-9 is referred to as 'lower school' with 10 and 11 being 'upper school'

The exams taken in year 11 are usually GCSEs. These used to be called O-levels for some reason and lots of older people will sometimes call them that by mistake.

Kids choose which GCSEs they want to do at the end of year 9, and start learning the material in year 10.

Maths, science and English are all compulsory and make up 5/6 GCSEs (one maths, two English, two or three science).

Most people do about 10 and can pick from all of the other subjects what they want to do.

We don't really have a 'locker room' culture????

It's quite common for people to go to all girls or all boys schools.

Schools here are nowhere near as big as American schools. We probably won't have high budget theaters or particularly large sports areas.

I've never heard anyone talk about 'funding'???? Just assume nothing is funded, arts and sports alike. We do lots of fundraisers for anything expensive like rugby tours or school productions.

We still have that weird culture thing where like if you're smart then you can't be popular or play sports???? Strange.

Sitting at a specific table at lunch time isn't really a thing. Actually most people brought lunch from home and then would just sit somewhere outside. A lot of the buildings would be closed during breaks.

Not many people really drive to school.

Sixth form/college

After you finish secondary school most people go into either college or sixth form (or a sixth form college). Years are

Age 16-17: sometimes called year 12, sometimes called lower sixth, sometimes called first year

Age 17-18: year 13, upper sixth, second year

Sixth form:

Some schools have an attached sixth form. A variation of the school uniform is often worn, or students will be asked to wear smart clothing or something

There are also sixth form colleges which are a bit more informal, less of a school environment. Students usually tend to wear their own clothes and call teachers by their first names. They're usually viewed as well.

The qualifications earned at the end of year 12 are called AS levels. They count partially towards your final A level grade. Students usually do 4 and drop one at the end of the year. You can do more if you want tho (I did five and died). You can do whatever subjects you want. Like. Literally nothing is compulsory. You wanna do art, music, dance and anthropology? Fuck it why not?

The highest AS grade is an A. B and C is a pass. D and E are fail marks. U stands for ungradable i.e you got so few marks that your exam isn't even worth a grade.

At the end of year 13 you do A levels. You need 3 to get into uni. Some people do 4. They always regret it.

Grades for A levels are the same as AS but they go up to an A*.

Some schools do a thing called the International baccalaureate. I don't understand what it is and frankly it scares me. I don't know how it's graded or what you need for uni. It's a mystery.

Sixth forms can be comp/grammar/Private/boarding same as secondary school.

College:

You can do a bunch of different types of qualifications. Most popular are usually B-Techs and Diplomas.

You usually only study one subject as opposed to four.

From what I gather, the point in doing a B tech is it's more practical and less theoretical and aims to help you get the skills necessary to go straight into the work force.

Unis kind of have to evaluate B-techs fairly, but they don't like them.

Nobody thinks very highly of B-Techs unfortunately bc they're considered to be less academic and easier. Idk if that's the case but there you go. People will sometimes refer to shit versions of other things as 'B-Tech'. For example, Pepsi is just B-Tech Coca Cola. Boris Johnson is a B-Tech Donald Trump.

I know nothing about the grading system for either of these qualifications im sorry.

In a sixth form college there will be people doing A levels and also people doing B techs all in the same building.

University:

I won't go too much into detail but basically you get a degree at the end of it and degrees usually take 3 years to complete. Years are first year, second year, third year etc.

Some courses are longer and some people will do a year in industry in their third year, making their overall degree time 4 years.

Tuition is currently £9,250 per year. I have never met anyone who hasn't gotten a loan for this.

Most people also apply for a maintenance loan. You get money proportional to your family income. The highest is about £8,500 per year. Idk what the lowest is. Some people choose not to take out this loan and their parents give them financial support instead.

The pay back plan for these loans is super lenient, doesn't affect your credit score and is wiped clean after 35 years. Most students think of their loan as more of a tax than a debt (tho we all still cry about it).

People don't live in dorms. We call them halls of residence (or halls for short).

Most people don't live in halls after first year, they leave and find shared housing.

Most halls aren't catered.

Most halls don't have shared rooms.

Because we study so few subjects at A level, we do have this system in the UK where you take a bunch of different unrelated subjects in your first year and then decide on your major later. Instead you apply for a programme already knowing your major. So when I applied to university I applied to the BA French and German Linguistic Studies course at a number of universities.

Different courses have different entry requirements. So it's easier to get into uni to study History than it is to study Maths.

Each 'class' is referred to as a module, and all of your modules are usually related to your main degree title.

Stereotypically STEM students think that humanities students are dumb. Humanities students think STEM students are arseholes who don't know how to read so if you wanna have that kinda jock/nerd type rivalry but in uni then humanities/STEM is quite a good one.

We call all of our lecturers by their first names. Sometimes we go to the pub with them. I watched a documentary about gay porn with one of them. It's chill.

I've never seen anyone show up to a lecture in pyjamas. People would think it's weird.

We refer to clubs as 'societies'. I love being part of the Musical Theatre Society. It's sounds so much more impressive than club.

The English version of Ivy League is Russel Group. The most prestigious Unis outside of Oxford and Cambridge tend to be: Durham, St Andrews (Scotland), Imperial, LSE and Warwick.

Slang and Groups

We don't really use the word 'jock'. In my school we called those guys the 'Rugby Lads' because they all played rugby.

We don't really use the word preppy/peppy whatever because I literally don't know anybody who is like that.

Try 'Drama kids' instead of Theater kids.

The kids who do drugs and don't come to school are called road men. Even the girls. To do road is to deal drugs but you don't really hear people say that much.

If we can't be bothered to say a teachers full title we will usually call them 'sir' or 'miss' but not really ma'am.

'Hall Pass' isn't a thing.

Our school did have prefects but fuck if I know who they were. They didn't really have any extra responsibility or power.

School uniforms are a thing in most schools. The things people did to make themselves seem cool were things like rolling their skirts up super short, wearing the rugby ties on match days, trying to get away with shoes that don't TECHNICALLY break the rules but are deffo not allowed, wearing as much make up as they could get away with, without teachers noticing. Our school was p strict on uniform tho in comparison with a lot of schools in my area.

If your accent doesn't fit the standard for your area it will affect you in some way (depending on your accent).

Homeroom is called registration

Gym is sometimes called the sports hall

People don't really go to school matches unless they're dating sb bc we don't have bleachers.

Home ecenomics was called Food Tech and Textiles in my school

Woodshop or whatever is called DT (design and technology)

People don't get as involved in extracurriculars in school (but they do at uni).

We DO have houses and we get points given to out houses like in Harry Potter but unlike Harry Potter literally nobody gives a fuck. In my school they added a whole new house and moved everyone into new houses and literally nobody noticed and nothing changed.

There is a BIG difference between comp schools and all of the other kinds in terms of culture. I didn't know this until I went to uni and started joking about the time some kid started throwing chairs in RE (religious education) or when so and so tried to set our French teacher on fire and literally all of the grammar school kids were like O.O WTF.

Slang and school culture will also vary a lot depending on where you live. I live in East London which is not a very well off area but it IS in london so my experiences would match with that.

Everything is completely different in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland so like.... Sorry.

[megan-jayne-blog]

Confidence in Education

From a fairly young age of about 8-9 I had always thought of myself to be an average student. I was sitting comfortably in the middle of the class as far as grades were concerned. I enjoyed writing and took a huge passion for it, I would spend hours upon hours writing made up stories . I always knew that Maths was my weaker subject but I just figured out that I took a bit longer to learn things which I have no finally accepted.

It was then one day when I about 8 I was taken out of Assembly at my Primary school to practice my times tables. I found it a bit embarrassing at first but soon I just felt left out. Why was I the only one doing extra Maths? Everyone else was in the Assemble singing songs and listening to visitors when I was just stuck doing extra Maths-not knowing why I was being singled out. This is probably the first time I realised that I was weaker at this subject more than my other class mates.

Being only 8 I didn’t think too much of it. But I then saw small things happening. We were in class 2 and class 3 was were the year 5s and 6s were. Our teachers thought it would be a great idea for some students in our year to have a taster in the bigger class. Fine I thought. I then realised that this would be a permanent thing for Maths and English. I noticed the clever ones going up and leaving us kids in the other class. Why was this? I asked My teachers why we weren’t going up and she replied “The more able people get to go up” I asked why being a very curious child and she said “Because the work it harder up there,”

Now why in the world would you split 8 years old in half. Putting the more “Able” Students in one class and the other ones in another. It’s like prioritising the clever ones and saying to the “not so clever ones” You are too dumb to go into that class, the intelligent ones can go because they get higher marks on their test paper. That’s what my 8 year old mind thought at the time. And quite frankly at the age of 14 i still feel the same way. 

This whole maths thing carried on into year 6 (at 11) the start of SATS! (which if you don’t know is exams on maths and english that help you to get setted in high school) I was bombarded with these practice exams and formulas i hadn’t even heard of! It’s sad but I actually got used to getting my maths results back and feeling disappointed. Not to mention hearing other students getting 30+ marks out of 50 and me sitting there with 9. It’s no one’s fault that I felt this way. But I have constantly felt this since I understood what a good mark on a paper meant. A lot of people would say “Oh get over it, it’s just a number,” or “There are worst things to worrying about that,” But when your self esteem has gone from an 8 out of ten to a 2 in a space of a few months it’s really not as simple to just “get over it”

So after a bunch of hard work and revision for my Maths SATS in particular I got my paper back I realised that I had failed Maths. Well that lowered my self confidence massively. I passed English as I know I’m not bad at English as I had one several awards for poetry so I knew that when I got into high school I would probably do quite well in that aspect...

Before I go on to the next here are the sets for the subjects: Set 6=bottom                                                                                                            Set 5=bottom (slightly higher than 6 though)                                                          Set 4=Middle                                                                                                        Set 3=Middle                                                                                                          Set 2=Top                                                                                                            Set 1=Top                                                                                                                But guess what. Got into High School, not to mention the anxiety of a new environment and making new friends to top it all of just a few days in I realised i was put into set 6 maths which is the lowest. I didn’t seem overly surprised but at the same time wondered whether I could have been a set higher. And then English, the subject that I thrived in and spent hours on end writing stories and novels, I was put into set 6 for that, set 6 for science, set 6 for Languages, set 6 everything! My thoughts of being an average student was completely wrong. My whole outlook on my abilities in class changed, I from then found myself saying this like “I’m dumb,” “I’m bad at Maths,” “I’m going to fail my GCSE”. Sets was a thing which didn’t even cross my mind in year 6 had a sudden impact on my life, the thing that I thought about and dwelt about night and day. I found myself trying to get out of lessons quickly or after everyone else just to avoid having to walk of a set 6 class and my friends seeing me with people in my class.

You may say this “But it doesn’t matter, a set is a set nothing more,” Well that’s true but even though it may be such a small thing it affected me and still does to this day. I was confident in year 6 and confident in my abilities (mostly) but when I hit year 7 my confidence went from a 2 that had already been knocked down to a 0.

I realised that Primary School really didn’t do me any good as confidence was concerned. My friends were all middle or top set and i was at the bottom.

So i thought, if my primary school thought so little about me then maybe I could prove them wrong. I knew I was so much better at English than I was made out to be. Maths I knew I wasn’t incapable. And science I knew that I was better than set 6. 

My aim was to move up to Middle for English (either set 4 or 3). For Maths I wanted to move up 1 set so i could sit comfortably in set 5 but still to be happy there. Science I wanted to move up to either set 5 or 4.

I worked my Butt of. Especially in English. I pushed myself to the limits. Revised for every test, incorporated in Lesson frequently and  just hoped that I was doing my best. I achieved good test results that clearly proved to people I was in the wrong set. When the summer rolled along and the sets were being made, I found out an amazing discovery. I had been put up to set 2 in English! Take that Primary School teachers! I hadn’t just gone up 1 set but went up 5 sets which is almost unheard of! I was so pleased. And couldn’t wait to walk into that classroom followed by the clever students. I no longer had to walk into my English class embarrassed or had to duck so my friends didn’t see me coming out of there. I finally felt like I had achieved my goal!

Maths also improved. I went up to set 5 which I was happy with. Even though still bottom I improved and now can happily say That I’m top of the bottom! In Science I moved up a set which although i would have liked one more I was ok with it.

Now I know this massive essay like piece of writing is what a lot of people would class a “Dramatic” But as I have looked back on how I have felt since 8 years old I had no idea How much it affected me. I understand that yes it can be a lot worse and yes I could have had things a lot tougher but this caused me anxiety, stress and overall an unhealthy relationship with education which I’m still trying to gain to this day. If you have any questions or experiences you would like to share please tell me! 

[theloveoflearning-blog]

My life has been full of quiet moments. I’m not a quiet person by nature, but that is how it has been.

As a child, I had a lot of aspirations. I wanted to be everything. Study everything. Do EVERYTHING!.

Yet as a teenager, I couldn’t do anything; Weeks crept by at a snail’s pace, as I healed from operation after operation, in a seemingly endless loop. I felt forced into an uncomfortable position between, what I believed, what doctors said, and how parents behaved. For a while, life felt hopeless.

Now that the past is solidly in the past, I need to move on. I need something, so badly to slingshot me into the future I wanted as a kid. Even if the future is slightly different from the one, I thought, I would have.

However, as any adult knows, ‘slingshotting’ isn’t possible. Sure, it happens for some, but it doesn’t always lead to good results. A person who reaches too high, too quickly, can fall at a moment’s notice, and may not have a safety net to fall back on. That’s why I want to study, to give myself that safety net. By gradually grinding through college, I am allowing myself an opportunity I was denied.

So for the past year I have been studying GCSE English and Maths. I am proud to say, after a year of hard work, dedication, and tons of reassurance, I passed with flying colours!

English B (Level 6)

Maths C (Level 5)

It’s shocking, I definitely did not expect to get the grades I did, I wanted them and aimed for them, but I never expected to get them. Burning the midnight oil worked! I studied for long hours, forced to take breaks on occasion by family and life. I would go to sleep with maths filling my head, and found myself, Jokingly, praying to Pythagoras. The confidence my peers had in me leaves me baffled. I don’t know why everyone was so confident in my grades, although I’m thankful they were as it gave me a peek at having that confidence in myself.

Thinking about the future:

I’m very grateful to live in a country that provides free education, which has allowed me the opportunity to go back and study. I’m feeling very uncertain about the future. I don’t know where I’m heading, or whether or not this is the right path for me. What I do know is I plan to continue studying hard and to keep moving forward. I want to give it my best go, even if anxiety tries to hold me back. Because that’s life, and you have to move forward, and try your hardest to improve yourself, no matter what.

Here’s to moving forward.

A special thank you goes to all teachers; you’ll forever have my gratitude and deserve medals for everything you do to help improve the lives of your students.

Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this post and have any feedback that could help me improve my writing. x If you want to take it one step further you can help support my love of writing, education and studies -here-

(All images are owned by their original owners)

Thank you for reading.x

[fiercelittlestudyblr]

How do you deal with bad grades? I'm currently failing math..

Not so well! I just try to move on, and say to myself that I did my best, and nothing can be done about it now, and I can try to learn from the failure. But If you’re failing maths and you’re trying as hard as is healthy (I don’t want you to overwork yourself) then I would suggest reaching out to your teacher or getting some revision books and trying to do the work with a good mindset. If you get stuck and find it frustrating to stare at it for ages, go away and reset, take a deep breath and try again, maybe a simpler problem? 

When I was ding my GCSEs, I was predicted a D or a C at maths. Thats a fail or just about a pass in the UK. For many people around the country that’s good, and they’re really proud of themselves for that mark, but I was used to getting As and A*s, Bs in some places, so I was really worried about failing. 

I bought this book, the Usbourne illustrated Dictionary of Maths, and I used that a lot to get a different wording if my teacher’s confused me a bit. I also bought the revision guide/workbook that went with my textbook, and worked through the whole thing. I sat at the front of my class, too. I don’t know how exactly because I was aiming for a C or a B, but I managed to get an A overall in those exams. 

It took a lot for me to set aside my own hangups about maths. When I couldn’t do it first time I get really hard on myself and give up, but you can’t do that with maths. I don’t know if this is how you feel with problems, but I kind of had to give up a kind of pride? I had to accept that I had to work harder in a calm way to do it. But If anyone like your parent tells you to do that it feels so patronising. You kind of need to reach that point yourself. 

I hope it goes better, I’m really sorry this reply is shockingly late. I feel like I’ve let you down a bit in that respect. Good luck. Much love Emily xxx

[memoirsofanurse]

We All Come From Somewhere

My journey into the route of nursing was not a typical journey. It involved much debt, hard work and a totally random change of direction. I was never the top in anything in school (if we exclude being told I should have been in higher tier Science write before my GCSE exams) but I have made a successful, if not turbulent and diverse career.

I was never practical or quick on the draw with most things (which explains why Design and Technology, Maths and French were my lowest grades within my GCSE’s). When I went to college I achieved a standard 3 grades of A, B and C within different humanities subjects. At this point, I expected to become a teacher of religious studies or primary school children, clearly neither bore fruition.

Being young and the first of my family to complete A levels, I went to University as it seemed like a logical gap. By this point, I had completed a gap year working as a teaching assistant to get experience for when I was ready to apply for a PGCE, the most conventional route into teaching. MY first degree was a BA in Sociology, a thought provoking course that lets you discuss many aspects of life that become harder to get a job in once qualified. However, my course allowed me to study a variety of subjects covering near enough every topic you could imagine, therefore making me a jack of all trades and a master of none.

During my dissertation, I faced a very turbulent time period right before the Christmas holidays of 2010, where I was put on Post Exposure Prophylaxis (something I will no doubt come across throughout my posts) and my mother was taken ill with a stroke a week before Christmas when I was to return to the doctor for a wrong diagnosis. At the time, I was researching the biopolitics and health of reality television, looking at the ‘Jade Effect’ that allowed people to learn about cervical cancer via the tragic death of Jade Goody who died from a condition which she should not have. Her death saved countless lives as the uptake of cervical screening sky rocketed at this time.

It was after my HIV scare that my focus shifted to HIV and more so the body and health. Saying that, one of my optional modules within my second year was focusing on the body as a social, physical and political site of action. It was here I became interested in health and wellbeing. Any how, I applied for a masters in Gender Studies at my University, where I got to the end of my first year, looked around the library and thought this is all theoretical. So, one of the days I was undertaking a shift in the student shop (I had many roles in University) I thought lets go down the nursing route. So I applied on the Thursday, interviewed Friday and started on the Monday, a change that has impacted on me for the better. It literally was a whirlwind decision, and one I did not regret. Thankfully, the NHS paid for places on the University course and I received a bursary and a student loan (although this was only £1000 a term) and as we will see, having a part time bar job at the same time to make ends meat really does add on extra stress.

I have a great career. My first job was palliative and end of life care within a hospice. I moved to Accident and Emergency (a change very different in its entirety) and then chronic pain management. I moved into sexual health where I helped cover the HIV service and got my first HIV Nurse Specialist role in my most current job. I am currently in the position of waiting to commence a HIV Clinical Nurse Manager role within a well known and beacon of care facility within Central London.

So as you can see, my journey has been a long one. It has taken much hard work but you know what, I am here. I really hope you find some inspiration in this blog and my aim is to provide insight, memoirs, tips and tricks into those wanting to nurse, or those needing inspiration. We are all different, but we are all unique and have the capacity to care. Being a nurse is not a job for those to be too stupid to be a doctor, it is a calling and requires its own expert set of skills and judgements that can have crucial impacts on a person. We all do our roles for the same outcomes, but we all work differently where I hope the hierarchy will soon be broken down.

[uncontrolledfission]

day 54 of 100 days of productivity 💌

1. Got my CS test back today, I got an A! I’m not too proud of this though—I was marked very generously and was on the boundary for an A. With a heavy heart, I do consider it a B. Which is still okay but that’s not as well as I aim to do.

2. I had the AS mechanics test today! I had a free period before the test in which I did exam-style questions, but a friend from primary/secondary school came and sat with me. We did study for a while then we had a bit of a life catch-up session, she’s so sweet! She then had two biology exams afterwards, I hope she did well.

But about the mechanics test, I went in expecting the worst and I was surprised when it went really, really well! It’s entirely possible I got every question right but I’m not going to jinx it nor do I think I actually did. Mechanics has this weird quality where if you mess up a single sign you mess up the whole answer, or sometimes there’s just little annoying things you forget which messes it all up. Fingers crossed, though, let’s hope I did well!

3. Finally began my tutoring job today! I feel proud—this is the first job I’ve ever technically had. I’m tutoring a year 11 student in GCSE higher maths. She hasn’t been doing too well and it’s my job to do my best to catch her up. I worry that I’m a bad teacher but I am really trying my best, and I’ve reassured her that she can be 100% totally honest with me about anything in the hopes that I can improve my methods through her feedback. Those of you who have followed for a while will know I have some crazy form of impostor syndrome, this is driving me up the wall but there should be a first time for everything, it’s not hurting anyone and I genuinely want to be the best I can, so I will!

- J

[studylizziee]

How I prepared for the BMAT

Someone sent me an ask wanting advice for the BMAT, so I did this post. Bear in mind my very average results (which you can see here) when deciding whether to take my advice! Hope it’s helpful x

Scoring System

There are 3 sections in the BMAT. The first two are marked on a scale of 1-9 (9 being the highest). It’s designed so that an average candidate (who by definition will be academically very able) will get approximately 50% of the marks, which translates to 5.0 on the scale. Any score above 6.0 is really good! Section 3 is an essay task marked in two parts. The first is a score between 1-5 (5 being the highest) for ‘quality of content’. The second is a letter between E-A (A being the highest) for ‘quality of written English’.

So I would say aim to get around a 5.0 or higher on the first 2 sections, and a 3A or higher in Section 3. Now, on to my tips!

General

First things first, make sure you get to know the format of the exam:

Written test, 2 hours long

Section 1: Aptitude and Skills (1 hour, 35 multiple choice questions

Section 2: Scientific Knowledge (30 mins, 27 multiple choice questions)

Section 3: Writing Task (30 mins, 1 question)

With preparation, the sooner the better honestly. I started doing some loose prep about 7-8 weeks before, then starting doing past papers about 4 weeks before, but I felt really unprepared so I would recommend leaving more time.

You aren’t allowed a calculator so practise some mental maths!

There is a specification and a ton of past papers, so there’s lots of material out there to use in your prep.

Section 1

this section is all about critical thinking and problem solving

I found it pretty similar to the UKCAT Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning sections, so if you’ve done the UKCAT you’ll find that helpful!

for critical thinking, questions include: what the conclusion is, where the flaw in the argument is, what statement strengthens a particular argument, and what is an assumption of the text

it’s really all in the wording – look out for small words like ‘some’, ‘many’, ‘all’ or ‘no’ that completely change the meaning of the statement

for questions about compatibility: if nothing contradicts the statement, even if nothing directly supports it, it is compatible

problem solving involves a lot of maths type questions involving patterns, spacial awareness e.g. sides of a 3D shape, etc

make sure you’re on it with these basic maths skills: times tables(!), percentage increase/decreases, converting between fractions/decimals/percentages, interpreting graphs/tables of data, probabilities, ratios

with more wordy problems you can use algebra to help solve them

you have to work fast, but it’s not as time-pressured as Section 2 so breathe, you can do this!

also, TSA Oxford papers are really similar (although in my opinion slightly easier) to Section 1 so do those past papers if you want some extra practice

Section 2

this section is testing biology, chemistry, physics, and maths

on the BMAT website, they say it’s GCSE level maths and science. But from experience, I found that it was more like AS level

don’t panic though because there is an assumed knowledge guide which you can access for free online, which is like a CGP revision guide

the hardest thing about this section is the timing - it’s literally impossible to devote the amount of time you need to every question

soo if you’re spending too long on a question, GUESS AND MOVE ON

honestly, the best skill you can learn for this section is to quickly figure out which questions will take longer and which you can answer quickly

also, use BBC Bitesize because it explains concepts really well and concisely

Physics

don’t freak out if you’re not doing A Level Physics – most people aren’t so we’re all in the same boat. What I did whenever I was stuck was just ask one of my friends doing A Level Physics to help me, or you could ask a Physics teacher for help

there are LOTS of formulae that you really must learn – here’s a pic from my revision of the ones I learned

KEY:

F = force

m = mass

a = acceleration

v = velocity (and once volume)

V = voltage

h = height

g = gravity

W = weight

P = power

I = current

E = energy

R = resistance

Q = charge

t = time

c = speed of light

n = turns on primary/secondary coil of transformer

d = density

ws = wavespeed

f = frequency

lamda = wavelength

the most common topics that come up so you should be solid on are: electricity, energy/forces, the atom/radioactivity

Biology

genetic tree diagrams almost always come up

the questions are mostly human biology, and a lot of it is factual recall, so I found it’s not as hard as the other sciences

Chemistry

make sure you’re really clued up on the periodic table (e.g. isotopes) and periodic trends

there are quite a few calculation type questions so make sure to practise mole conversions etc, and mental maths again

Maths

make sure you know how to manipulate fractions, do speed sums, and do algebra

Section 3

a lot of people worry about writing an ‘essay’, but in reality all in needs to be is 3 or 4 paragraphs

there isn’t actually that much space to write as you are limited to an A4 page, within the box which is considerably smaller

there are 3 questions to choose from, and I would really recommend spending a solid 2 or 3 minutes picking a question

for each title, there are sub questions, and you MUST address all of these in order to get a 3 or higher for ‘quality of content’

it’s really really important to PLAN!

brain dump ideas for, against, and to conclude. Expand on each of your points to form a PEE type structure (point, evidence, explanation)

organisation: it’s SO important to have a clear structure. Usually I would do:

good things about argument I don’t agree with

bridge explaining why I don’t agree with that argument

argument I do agree with

conclusion summarising merits of both but ultimately why I took my position

practise at first by planning essays if you can’t be bothered to write it out every time (like me aha), then do some timed essays on the actual answer sheet

have a look at the mark scheme

Overall

The best way you can find out what you need to learn is to

check the specification

do some practice questions

Although there are lots of past papers, there are no explanations for the answers. I highly recommend paying for BMAT Ninja, which has worked solutions so you can figure out where you went wrong and learn from your mistakes (don’t worry if you can’t afford it – they have a bursary scheme that you can use)

Ultimately for this exam you just have to practise – do as many past papers as possible, starting off by just working through the questions, then building up to timed papers.

Useful resources

the official BMAT website

the specification 

section 2 assumed knowledge guide

past papers going back to 2003!

also, TSA papers for section 1

a book called Preparing for the BMAT that I found helpful 

BMAT Ninja and one of its creators, Ali Abdaal, has made a series of YouTube videos giving advice 

The BMAT by @joolshallie

Tips for the BMAT by @help-im-a-medstudent

[aeseyastudies]

170618 // I haven’t made a post like this in a while, but I’m revising for an exam right now and it’s the last thing I want to be doing so I’m procrastinating (don’t follow my lead kids).

How I use Digital Notes

I’ll make a more detailed post about how I study at some point, but for now:

I use microsoft onenote, but you can use whatever program you feel comfortable with.

Useful features of onenote include the organisation into notebooks, sections, and tabs, search function, equation support, tagging, and formatting options (inc. different heading styles).

You can find really great posts about onenote quite easily if you’re interested in how it works (I would 100% recommend it).

Throughout the year I type up my class notes, summarising information and organising it into a sensible order.

This took a lot of discipline and I fell off the bandwagon quite a bit. I initially intended to type up my notes from the day every evening, but I found it’s more realistic to just do it as often as possible and to aim to finish each topic’s notes before I move onto the next one.

When I come to revise for exams I will rewrite and summarise my notes on paper (writing out notes helps me remember them, but this may not work for you)

When I’m doing the first few past papers I’ll have my notes with me so I can look things up until I can do a paper without them.

I find this is more effective than using the mark scheme to help as the mark scheme basically gives you the answers.

Why Make Digital Notes?

Obviously digital notes don’t work for everyone, but I find they’re much more useful to have than notes on paper, at least before you start revising.

The main benefits of digital notes are:

typing is faster than writing

search functions (depending on the program) to look up information quickly

neater and faster formatting

you can back them up somewhere else so you don’t have to worry about losing or damaging them

you can bring all your notes with you without it weighing a tonne (assuming your laptop/tablet doesn’t weigh a tonne)

copy and paste! Ofc use this as infrequently as possible, but it’s useful for quotes etc.

pictures without the effort of drawing or printing out and sticking in

cheaper as you don’t have to buy pens and paper as often

an excuse to bring your computer into school and then go online shopping and play games during really boring classes no I haven’t done this what are you talking about so you have access to google etc. to look things up whenever

Prioritising

The only reason I’ve managed to keep up with my notes throughout the year is because I don’t take any for maths and I’ve kind of fallen off the bandwagon for French (whoops). It’s a bit unrealistic to expect to keep up with all the notes for all your subjects (particularly if you’re doing gcses), so prioritise.

Subjects like maths tend to assess a skill rather than knowledge, so it’s probably more useful to do practice questions rather than make notes.

If you’re dropping a subject in a year and won’t touch it again make sure it’s actually worth making notes for the whole year.

In Class or After Class?

Whether you write notes on the computer during class or afterwards depends on the class.

I’ve got one particular teacher who flits back and forth between topics and often mentions things without going into detail because she assumes we’re too stupid to understand (not my favourite teacher ngl). So I use my laptop in her lessons so I can go back to topics we’ve already done and so I can google things to fact check (she frequently dumbs stuff down to inaccurate levels) and expand on points that she makes.

If you’ve got a teacher that tends to move super fast it might be worth having a computer with you as typing is generally much faster than writing.

If you can’t touch type learning is a really good idea, even just to improve the speed of your typing (I can’t actually touch type but I took a course until I learnt to use all my fingers when typing and now I type much faster). There’s lots of free online courses available.

Alternatively, you can just make all your class notes on paper and type up the important information when you get home.

This means you don’t have to worry about your class notes being neat enough to revise from; after you type them up you can file them or even throw them away to save space.

It also works as a review which is really good for putting the information into your long-term memory.

However it is also pretty time consuming so you’ve got to be super disciplined to keep on top of it.

In my school at a levels I’ve found it’s not too unusual to have a laptop out but it’s a bit odd to have one at gcses (idk about other schools). Obviously you shouldn’t care about what other people think, but if having your laptop/tablet with you will make you feel self-conscious and uncomfortable then leave it at home.

Also laptops and tablets are expensive and it’s understandable if you’d rather keep them safe at home.

That said, people do get used to it. Even if you’re the only one with a laptop/tablet, the novelty wears off quickly.

Some teachers don’t actually like students using laptops and tablets during class, so do check before you bring it in.

I hope this helped! Of course if you have any questions about this (or anything else) my ask is always open please ask me something

Here’s where I post this and find 56 typos :/