A Student's Guide to GCSE's

Having completed Secondary school, I have been reflecting upon my experiences. From making friends to revising, the past five years have taught me a lot. Within this post, I will share everything I have learnt and hopefully offer some helpful advice. Although, even if you no longer go to school, continue reading as you may still find something useful.

First, I would like to mention that the methods and techniques I use are specifically beneficial for visual learners, such as myself. If this type of learning is not for you, feel free to use or ignore any of the following advice because this is ultimately just a platform for me to share my thoughts with people that may or may not want to hear them.

Year 7:

A common hardship that every student faces is the transition from primary school to secondary school. In a matter of weeks, you go from being amongst the oldest and most respected students to one of the youngest and least respected students; it can be terrifying (I know that initially, I feared every moment of it). However, the first piece of advice I would offer at this stage is to not take your first year too seriously. I am not saying to not try in your lessons because you most definitely should, but settling in and making close friends should be a priority. When I was in this position, I felt overwhelmed by the new environment, so I let this year pass without appreciating the lower level of stress. However, if you make friends and have fun (without being badly behaved), you can create a more enjoyable school experience.

Another important point I would like to make is that making a great first impression with your teachers is vital. As a year seven student, I was the typical “teacher’s pet” who would put their hand up for every question, hand out the books and tell people to be quiet. Whilst this may be slightly embarrassing to look back on, this behaviour meant I was recognised as well behaved and respectable by my teachers, which made certain aspects of school much easier in the future. I felt comfortable asking for help when I was confused. I had access to opportunities such as becoming a Prefect. I was selected to speak in front of hundreds of other students and parents. Without proving the type of student I was, none of this would have been possible.

So overall, whilst you need to set a precedent for the type of student you will be, allow yourself time to enjoy entering this new chapter because you have years in the future to put in the immense hard work.

Year 8:

This year will be similar to the previous one as you still have not started your GCSE’s. However, I would suggest devoting more time to studying. You need the ensure you are not shocked by the amount of work you will have to do moving forward; if you make sure you are accustomed to revising, it will be far easier to do so in the future. But all in all, much like year seven, do not stress too much about school because soon you will experience even more stress, so it is better to start with a stress-free foundation as this will prevent any anxiety from escalating too far. After all, your mental health should be your priority not only through school but your entire life. Therefore, if you understand your limits early, you can make sure you do not overexert yourself when vital exams arise.

Year 9:

Now we move into my advice for year nine. Aside from year eleven, this is perhaps one of the most daunting years as you first begin your GCSE's. The increased workload, the new content and potentially the new teachers all seem overwhelming. However, if you follow the suggestions I am about to list, everything will hopefully become less stressful:

• First, ensure that you immediately begin to make written revision resources, specifically flashcards and mind maps that can help you learn and internalise content. If you create these as soon as possible the stress of doing it later will be mostly alleviated. This means you can focus your energy on other, more important, aspects of your school life, including completing exam questions and learning the content fully.

• Second, do not stress about your grades at this point. At my school specifically, you're capped at a grade four (a low C) to begin with, which made me feel like I was underachieving as people in other schools could immediately achieve a grade nine. But in the end, I did obtain those top grades as I was able to ignore the initial numbers. I advise that you definitely do this and only focus on percentages and scores because it will ultimately lead to a more positive mindset and hopefully more success (and those top grades) in the future.

Overall, this is the year you should begin to take your studies more seriously. But like I have repeatedly mentioned, it is not yet the time to devote every second to revision as you still need to give yourself plenty of time to relax, and crucial exams are still quite far away.

Year 10:

Year ten was strange for me because it was heavily impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Four months into this year we were sent into lockdown, which meant I had to complete all of my work from my family office at home. This was both mentally and physically challenging and was just the foundation of issues that this virus would invoke on all of our lives (I will talk more about this in a future post). However, the advice below does not relate to this as hopefully, no other years will have to experience this in the future.

To begin, I would advise making almost all of your revision resources and organising your revision folders in year ten. This is because you will have finished the syllabus for most subjects so you can summarise all of the content in mind maps or flashcards. As I stated previously, it is advisable to have all of this finished by the start of year eleven to allow you to focus heavily on exams.

Additionally, by this point, you will have identified the subjects you are struggling in and so you should invest more time into these. For me, this was history, and so I created detailed mind maps comprised of every piece of information needed for my exams. I then proceeded to learn this content and received 97% in my final exam. I am not saying to neglect those subjects that you feel more confident in; you should maintain a consistent level of effort across all subjects, but time management between them is key. A structured revision timetable could assist with this (a basic template is displayed below) to allow you to plan how you will devote your time to each subject.

Year 11:

Year eleven… the dreaded year. For your entire school life, you are told that this will be the hardest and most challenging year of all, and that is correct. Once again, this experience was different for me due to coronavirus: as a year group, we were behind on learning content, we had to wear masks, and we did not take the official final exams, so our grades were based upon numerous sets of mock papers and other exams (which resulted in us having to complete more exams than usual). Despite this, I do have some tips on how to handle year 11:

• The most important suggestion I have is to work as hard as you can right from the beginning. Complete as many past papers, exams questions and rapid-fire questions as you can to prepare yourself for anything that may be thrown at you.
  

• In written subjects such as English and History, ensure that you memorise the content (e.g. quotes) and the structure of the exam. Of course, if you want to complete practice exam papers that will help you, but they can also be time-consuming so by just learning what you need to do, you will hopefully be fully prepared.
  

• Next, in the sciences, you should have already made your mind maps or flashcards by this point, and so completing past papers and exam questions will make sure you learn how to handle the content of the exams. I used an online service called Tassomai, which allowed me to answer roughly 300 rapid-fire questions a day. In my opinion, this heavily contributed to the grades I achieved.
  

• Finally, in maths, I used flashcards for key equations and values, which I occasionally looked back on and focused the majority of my time on past papers. I completed roughly 35 papers during my revision, which meant I knew which type, structure and length of questions would appear. Luckily, in maths, many of the questions have the same structure but with different values and so this method proved to be extremely useful.
  

These methods will require different amounts of time depending on your ability, but they can be used and adapted by anyone to maximise your revision. However, it is also important that you give yourself time to relax regularly; I would suggest having one day a week where you detach from everything related to school (for me this was a Sunday).

Summary:

Upon reflection, I am pleased with my time at Secondary school. I believe that I put in a sufficient amount of effort and I am overjoyed with my final grades. The only thing I would do differently is ‘kick myself into gear’ slightly earlier. I waited until midway through year ten to do this but with the adverse circumstances, I was forced to put myself under unnecessary pressure to make up for a previous lack of effort. However, in the end, everything worked out so I guess I really would not change a thing.

The four statements I would like to conclude with are:

• Do not take drama too seriously.

• Do not compare yourself to others.

• Allow yourself time to relax.

• Try your best.

If you follow these four morals, I can assure you that this will give you a greater chance of succeeding along your journey. Hopefully I have supplied you with something helpful throughout this post, regardless of whether you are still in school. Please leave your thoughts or questions in the comments so I can give you any further advice!