Grow Your Grades 2016: Gribby2's Study Diary

I liked the tips, especially with using colours, reading things over - definitely something I've done in the past/will do now as well

One thing I would say is to space out your paragraphs - particularly when you're listing what happened on each day. It makes it a lot easier to read

Good luck with all of your tests and results

I'm not entirely sure how you make cardboard ukeles, but I read something on the internet about it. I only have to do the new GCSEs in Maths and English, so it's not awful, but I would have preferred to do the old ones in everything. I feel sorry for your sister, as she'll have to do the new GCSEs in all subjects. Good luck with the new A-levels.

You'll have to do the new a-levels too! At least it's only English and Maths!

Yes, I will have to do the new A-levels too (unless they change it again by then). I hope yours go well.

Thanks! I'm in year 11 at the moment so GCSEs first! Good luck with yours too!

6.3.16
Hello. I have to write a paragraph about T.V for French, in preparation for my GCSE writing test. I also need to do some Creative Writing. Fortunately, most of my homework was due during the week, so that's all I have to do this weekend.

On Thursday, I had a Chemistry test. We marked the majority of it it in class, and I've only dropped one mark so far, but there are still a couple of extended writing questions to be marked. I revised by asking my father to test me, using the CGP revision guide to generate questions.

It's Mother's Day today. I drew a pelican, using pen and ink for my mother. I drew it yesterday.

I hope you are all well. I have a cold, but am not too unwell. Sorry I haven't posted in awhile.

A pelican? Woah! My mum got a really badly drawn heart stuck on a card with a poem on the inside. None of my siblings are artistically gifted so my mum has to put up with whatever we can manage.

If I asked my dad to test me I'm fairly sure he would freak out and say no. Hope you get better soon! Everyone seems to have colds at the moment.

11.3.16
Hello. Sorry I haven't posted since Sunday.

I was ill on Monday and Tuesday, but I did a lot of Creative Writing, as I was supposed to hand my first draft in on Thursday, though unfortunately I didn't get it quite finished. I'm sad I missed Reading For Pleasure on Tuesday, as I really enjoy working with the Y7s.

Today, I had a Biology test, as I was ill when we were supposed to do it. There were four of us who needed to sit the test and once we had finished, our teacher marked them. It was quite amusing, as I ended up talking quite a bit about death in a rather melodramatic way in one of the questions. It wasn't intentional, but my teacher found it funny. I got 19/20, dropping one mark. I was quite pleased with this. My revision consisted of my sister asking me questions. A,so, I read through the revision guide.

I hope you are all alright.

I'm just jealous you get to do Creative Writing. We did all of ours at the start of year 10 towards GCSE English. I hope you feel better now!! My entire class seems to be ill at the moment too (one day 13 of us were ill! We're calling it the year 11 death bug ).
19/20? Quite pleased? You need to take a reality check if you're quite pleased. I would be jumping up and down if I were you (and I wonder why my friends label me as the slightly crazy one!)
I'm alright, a little hyper but it's a Friday night so it's okay!!

It is good doing Creative Writing. It's run by one of the English teachers, who does it voluntarily after school on Thursday.

Thanks. I am feeling better. I agree that everyone seems to be ill at the moment.

It's part of being Aquarius - I don't tend to be particularly emotional about these things, though I am happy I got 19/20.

I'm glad you are well.

Where can I find this teacher???

Ah! The mystery world of being Aquarius. I'm Aries and that may be why I am emotionally?

You can find him in North Yorkshire somewhere I should have thought, given that's where my school is, though some teachers seem to commute from a long way away. I'd have thought they could find a school closer to where they live, but apparently not. I'm grateful he decided to set Creative Writing up, as it is really enjoyable.

I don't know much about astrology to be honest, though I find it interesting. I can be emotional about some things, in fact I'm sometimes over-emotional about random stuff (I think that's something to do with Mercury being in Pisces when I was born and this apparently having an influence, as I was born in the second decant or something like that), but things that ought to make me happy often don't have much effect. I don't really know why.

On a completely irrelevant note, rumours are circulating round school that my Computing teacher had been sacked. I really hope this is not true, as he's the only person who teaches Computing in the whole school and it'd probably be difficult to find a replacement at this time of year. Also, I don't really like the idea of changing teacher part way through GCSEs (unless my English teacher decided to leave/got sacked- that would be good, though I wouldn't want her to have no money and not be able to look after her two cats and a dog. She is awful though. The only good thing about is is she has pets). The French teacher I had last year got sacked (it's a long story) and we ended up with a someone who came out of retirement to teach us. She was so bad. It took her about half the lesson to set up the PowerPoint, she then talked for ages, yet managed to teach us absolutely nothing. She couldn't control the class and no-one payed any attention to her after awhile, as it was clear we wouldn't learn anything from her. She didn't even notice when people played on games on our iPads all through her lessons (our school has iPads). If she asked a question and you'd been paying no attention and made something up which didn't even answer her question then as long as you sounded confident, she didn't seem to notice. In a speaking test we did, everyone read the whole thing off their phones or iPads, pretending they had prompt words on them. She didn't notice that either.
Then we got yet another French teacher who was a bit less awful.
It would be even worse if something like that happened now though.

Just realised how stalkerish that sounded earlier. I meant where in the magical universe of English teachers, or something? (I'm recovering from a week of sleep deprivation). Maybe we could arrange him to borrow our old english teacher's TARDIS? (long story, very odd english teacher).

Wow. You know way more than I do about the star signs. All I know is that I'm an Aries and that my birthday is in a few weeks time.

Your teachers sound interesting... We had one science teacher that got sacked years ago because he was helping students to cheat on controlled assessments, or so the story goes. I don't think even some of our worst teachers would stand for people playing on their phones tho! Hopefully the bad french teacher from last year doesn't impact on your results (I'm sure you'll be fine)!

I hope your computing teacher is still at your school though! Being taught by someone who doesn't know about the subject is the worst.

It doesn't sound that stalkerish. A TARDIS? Your old Englidh teacher does indeed sound a tad odd.

I don't know much about star signs, but I sometimes read about astrology when I'm bored.

My teachers are indeed interesting... Some of them are very good, but there are the odd few who are really bizarre. To be fair, my French teacher who got sacked wasn't much better than the one we ended up with. He was Polish and spoke good French, but it his English was distinctly questionable and no-one had a clue what he was trying to say half of the time. He was pleasant, but it was not easy to understand him. That wasn't why he got sacked though. Hopefully, it won't affect our grades. My class has a really good French teacher now. We had her in Y8 too.

Thanks. I hope he hasn't been sacked too. I mean he's a bit scary, but he knows what he's talking about.

Here's to hoping he's still a member of staff at your school! It's good that you have a better French teacher now. My old English teacher was bizarre but now he's a head teacher somewhere so he must have been doing something right... Reading about astrology sounds cool. When I'm bored I just turn on the TV,