Starting A-levels

I am in my first year and although I'm doing different A levels to you (I'm doing chemistry, biology, psychology and English language), I'm sure the general tips for A levels are similar.
1. You have to be prepared to put the effort in! A levels are tough, but you will be rewarded if you work hard.
2. Consolidate the content while it is fresh in your mind. What I mean by this is, if you learn something in, for example in maths during the day, go home and write up your notes/ complete practice questions to solidify what you have learnt.
3. Do past papers regularly! The mark schemes at A level are so specific, if you learn what the examiners want from your answers early, this will be a real benefit to you
4. If something doesn't make sense, ask while you're teacher/ class are still working on that specific topic, rather than waiting a few months and realising it doesn't make any sense later on, when you have learnt more content.
5. Enjoy yourself!
Good luck!!!

So I am not doing any of those subjects. However ,I suggest you get ahead so learning new info in September wont be too overwhelming. I use Seneca Learning (have you heard of it?) to get ahead with learning. For example, I do daily lessons about Politics on Seneca learning (which is free btw.) Its really useful.

Plan a revision timetable and work with it strictly. I only study 3 subjects but know that I will get tired out revising 3 subjects everyday so I do 2 subjects a day after school. Have 1 off-day works best with me. I used to have 3 off-days which were friday, saturday and sunday but as you go through your first year you'll soon realise why that was a bad idea because its too much time wasted.

Here's a tip to motivate you when you're already in sixth form or college and are struggling or just not feeling like revising:
take each day as it comes. Don't dwell or become demotivated because perhaps you havent studied enough the day before.

Another thing I've learnt from my first year is exam questions are essential! During GCSEs and my first term in sixth form I heard that I should do exam questions all the time and it just flew out my ear because I hate them with a passion but you soon realise that it's one of the key things and most simple things to do to kind of have an inner mark scheme of the exams. You soon learn to speak 'mark scheme language' and are able to format your answers in the suitable way which is a key skill needed later for uni if you're planning on going.


Good luck

For maths and Latin, you really need to make sure you focus on a "little but often" approach - they're subjects which you learn incrementally and can't cram for at the end of the course. You'll probably want to plan to do weekly work on both, if not realistically a few exercises for both maths and Latin daily. You will probably be set work such that you could just as well do this fairly easily, but it's probably worth making the effort to make sure you spread your working on problem sheets/grammar exercists etc, over the week rather than just working on each the day before it's due, for example. This then allows you to have "downtime" between each crack at some of the problems to internalise the material, and then you reinforce your learning by revisiting it and reminding yourself of what you did the day before.

You'll also probably be studying various texts in Latin, so it might be useful to read some of them in English before starting the course, just to get an idea of the overall plot/content of the text (depending on whether it's literary, historical, or what have you). This can help keep you more focused when you're working on the text in Latin by giving you an idea of where things are going as you wade through the grammar while preparing your translation. For maths it might be worth, towards the end of the summer before you start 6th form, revisiting some of your GCSE notes briefly and doing a couple exercises just to make sure you haven't gone too rusty before you go into the classroom (and avoid any potential first day panics!).

Would you recommend having a revision timetable from the beginning? Or just when there are exams?

I sort of knew about the practise questions as my Biology and History teachers would always make me do practise questions. I'll make sure to print some off!

Have a timetable from the beginning. Mine is just the two subjects I have that day. so if I had bio and chem i would also study bio and chem later on so I can consolidate what I learnt.