organising gcse notes

so my school told me that we need to have a day folder and subject folders at home for some of our subjects but they didn’t say what subjects we’re going to need them for. can someone please tell me which of these subjects i’m most likely going to need a folder for just so i know how many to buy. these are my subjects:

english lit
english language
maths
physics
biology
chemistry
history
drama
french

thank you!

Reply 1

Doomotron

18

I never had this at my school so as it's something your school does it's unwise for people to make suggestions on what subjects are required. I'd assume the three main subjects but please ask your school directly for more information.

EDIT: You can also ask friends who go to the same school, they might know.

(edited 9 months ago)

Reply 2

5hyl33n

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

21

Original post by n509

so my school told me that we need to have a day folder and subject folders at home for some of our subjects but they didn’t say what subjects we’re going to need them for. can someone please tell me which of these subjects i’m most likely going to need a folder for just so i know how many to buy. these are my subjects:

english lit
english language
maths
physics
biology
chemistry
history
drama
french

thank you!

How ridiculous of your school. Presuming that you have a separate folder for each subject that will result in you carrying around 9 folders. If you group together English literature/English language and physics/biology/chemistry, that still ends with 6 folders.

Again, I’m sure this is not expected from you though you will need to ask your school for definite information.

Reply 3

Doomotron

18

Original post by 5hyl33n

How ridiculous of your school. Presuming that you have a separate folder for each subject that will result in you carrying around 9 folders. If you group together English literature/English language and physics/biology/chemistry, that still ends with 6 folders.

Absolutely. When I was in secondary and the sixth form I went to three different schools and each of them had utterly stupid gimmicks and programmes that were pointless.

At one of them, a grammar school I went to for two weeks, we had planners that needed to be signed once per week by a parent for seemingly no reason. I kept on forgetting and was given a detention for it, but luckily the day my detention was on was the first day I changed to another school.

At another grammar school I went to for a while there were events to celebrate the school's history. I never went to them as I had gone by then, but I doubt any of the students were particularly interested. Another thing was study time in classes. While most study periods would be in the library, every other day we'd need to arrange with one of our teachers to spend a lesson in their class doing work we could have done in the library. During the one week I was at that school I had one of these periods in the art room, where I was stuffed into the storeroom of the class working on a crappy sculpture I never finished.

At the third school, a comprehensive I went to for the most amount of time, we had lots of gimmicks and other stupidities:

•

'Hats' and 'keys' which would show what type of learning we'd be doing. The teachers found them as stupid as the students.

•

A required template for PowerPoint presentations in class. About a third of all slide space would be taken up by learning objectives and the title of the lesson.

•

Needing to use a specific pen colour for corrections and often a specific format for them.

•

A small book in physics to write down equations. This would have been much more useful if it wasn't ditched after one week. My mother now uses that books to do her accounting.

There were many others but it was a while ago now. Rest assured that school was not run by people who knew what they were doing, even though there were some teachers who were really good and that I got along with.

Reply 4

5hyl33n

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

21

Original post by Doomotron

Absolutely. When I was in secondary and the sixth form I went to three different schools and each of them had utterly stupid gimmicks and programmes that were pointless.

At one of them, a grammar school I went to for two weeks, we had planners that needed to be signed once per week by a parent for seemingly no reason. I kept on forgetting and was given a detention for it, but luckily the day my detention was on was the first day I changed to another school.

At another grammar school I went to for a while there were events to celebrate the school's history. I never went to them as I had gone by then, but I doubt any of the students were particularly interested. Another thing was study time in classes. While most study periods would be in the library, every other day we'd need to arrange with one of our teachers to spend a lesson in their class doing work we could have done in the library. During the one week I was at that school I had one of these periods in the art room, where I was stuffed into the storeroom of the class working on a crappy sculpture I never finished.

At the third school, a comprehensive I went to for the most amount of time, we had lots of gimmicks and other stupidities:

•

'Hats' and 'keys' which would show what type of learning we'd be doing. The teachers found them as stupid as the students.

•

A required template for PowerPoint presentations in class. About a third of all slide space would be taken up by learning objectives and the title of the lesson.

•

Needing to use a specific pen colour for corrections and often a specific format for them.

•

A small book in physics to write down equations. This would have been much more useful if it wasn't ditched after one week. My mother now uses that books to do her accounting.

There were many others but it was a while ago now. Rest assured that school was not run by people who knew what they were doing, even though there were some teachers who were really good and that I got along with.

Some of those rules made me simultaneously chuckle and roll my eyes.

Reply 5

n509

OP

2

Original post by Doomotron

I never had this at my school so as it's something your school does it's unwise for people to make suggestions on what subjects are required. I'd assume the three main subjects but please ask your school directly for more information.

EDIT: You can also ask friends who go to the same school, they might know.

thank you for your reply but my friends have no clue either and my school is closed for the year and does not reply to emails over the holidays

Reply 6

Doomotron

18

Original post by n509

thank you for your reply but my friends have no clue either and my school is closed for the year and does not reply to emails over the holidays

If none of your friends know it probably means your school hasn't made it clear enough and it may be their fault. You have two possible courses of action here:

•

Make the folders for every subject assuming you know what they want in the folders. This will keep you from getting into trouble but you'll likely do more work than you need to.

•

Don't do any of them as the school didn't tell you what to do. If enough students have the same issue the school (if it's run by people with brains) will take the blame.

Reply 7

*LifeHappens*

12

Original post by n509

so my school told me that we need to have a day folder and subject folders at home for some of our subjects but they didn’t say what subjects we’re going to need them for. can someone please tell me which of these subjects i’m most likely going to need a folder for just so i know how many to buy. these are my subjects:

english lit
english language
maths
physics
biology
chemistry
history
drama
french

thank you!

I slightly relate to what you're saying, because a few of my teachers told me the school will send an email about all the textbooks, folders and other stuff we need to buy over the holidays, yet it's entirely possible to find free online pdfs of textbooks, past papers with mark schemes and get notes from websites/youtube channels and still achieve good grades.

I think that it's slightly dumb asking students to spend their money buying a bunch of folders and binders for "organisation". Tbh, schools these days focus more on making students "organised" and "tidy" than actually preparing students for exams and helping them study.

If you and your friends don't know what's going on, then don't bother wasting time and money into buying things that the school hasn't clearly specified about.

Moreover, I suggest focusing on buying only what you need - for some subjects, you can get by with a notebook for notes and a few past papers for practice, for some you may need more resources (like texts for english lit, so if absolutely necessary you can buy a folder/binder for english and you can use half for lit and the other half for lang for example). A different way could be by buying two separate folders/binders and fill one with notes and the other with past/practice papers for your subjects instead of buying one for each and every subject - although that's harder to organise.

Anyways, I hope most of that made sense and it wasn't just waffle! Just know that you don't always need truckloads of folders, books and stationery to get good grades, it's down to your personal preference and how you study.
Good luck!

organising gcse notes

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