Grow Your Grades: A Sixth Form Story

good luck!

I realise that I'm a little late in starting my entry for Grow Your Grades, but who cares, it's here now!
Hi, I'm John! I'm a sixth form student at a school in Northern Ireland. In September I started my A-Levels, so I thought it would be a good idea to document my progress in blog form as the year goes on, and hopefully end in some fab results in August time!

A bit of background:


Academic Info:


Extra-Curricular


Uni - and all that stuff


Aims for the Year



Ok, so I think that's everything you may possibly need to know about me for now, but who knows' I've probably forgotten to tell you something really important about myself! Anyway, please enjoy my blog, comment away (any tips or tricks will be taken on ), and follow or watch or ask me to tag you for each update (I'm not really with the TSR lingo and etiquette lol). I'll probably post once or twice a week, but there will probably be mini updates in between times!
Until my next post, Ciao!!

I'll be following you! How does it feel like living on a farm?!?! It must be so cool and cosy!
(Also you can check out my gyg is you want!)

Thanks!! I can tell you're probably a townie by the fact you think a farm is cosy, it's very mucky and cold and wet - but at the same time very cool and brilliant and great!
I'll definitely go and check out your GYG thread once I come back in (from the farm lol) 😀

Omg you’re back!! really looking forward to following this as I loved your other ones Good luck with this year!

Np! Yes i live in a village haha! I would love to look after the animals but i get your point about it getting mucky! Reason i dont like gardening! 😂😂😂
Thank You for considering my gyg!

ofcourse i remember you, niamh!! (oh god is that how you spell your name)?
yeah sorry for the hiatus, i was trying to spend less time on the computer lol. You really are too kind, hopefully this years blog merts and exceeds expectations!! 😁

you do! (yes it is )
that's okay! i'm sure it will do

I was thinking how I could suck you all in to my blog and I just thought ...

Seeing as I titled my blog "A Sixth Form Story", I may as well continue the analogy As you probably guessed from the title, this post is about my termly report card. I think this would also be a good time to discuss what I did during my first term of A-Levels. My school uses a "traffic light" system for grades, and I'll try to copy that throughout this post (although I really don't like this system - see the end of the post).

English:


TLDR; Love English, we spent the first term on drama (A Streetcar Named Desire) and we were assessed on an essay that we wrote.
Grade: B

History:


TLDR; Even though we're studying the same stuff as GCSE, I'm still loving history, and I got full marks on my essay .
Grade: A*

Maths:


TLDR; My Maths teacher is brill, puns (you're going to have to read it now ) and I hate the equation for the area of a triangle.
Grade: B

Music:


TLDR; I was so disappointed when music became boring, but I'm still doing alright at it - 100%!
Grade: A*

For reference, my target grades are all As.
I thought I might finish up by explaining why I don't really like our "traffic light" approach to grades. Whilst they do give parents a nice visual as to how us pupils are doing, it doesn't give them a full picture. Even if you're 1% below your target grade, you are flagged up as underachieving - and that is then referred to our Year Head. And when you are achieving your target grade, you are awarded an orange - even if your target grade is an A*! What I think would be much better (and fairer) would be to introduce a system where our percentage attained is sent out (instead of a very broad grade), and the colours could be revised so that if you're within, say 3-5% of your target percentage band (of maybe class width 5%), you receive an orange, and if you get above this (or above 90%) you automatically are given the "green light".


That's me for this evening! This week has been very busy, so I'm planning on posting two more (maybe mini) updates tomorrow. Also, should I start a tag-list? You are more than welcome to join in the conversation, and I look forward to reading through any comments!
Ciao!!

Wow!! Great grades, well done! I always found it so interesting how subject preferences change between GCSE and A Level - I absolutely loved Physics GCSE and now choosing it for A Level has to be my biggest regret really glad you're loving English and History though! You'll learn to love maths Shame about Music though although you're still doing ridiculously well - 100% already! well done!

Tag list! Tag list! Tag list!

It definitely is interesting how quickly we change our opinions of something when we approach it from a different angle. I could never have loved Physics as a subject, the banter in class was great but I barely understood the subject - definitely no regrets there 😁!
Tbh, I probably hyped myself up a bit too much for music, but it really is quite tedious this year! That 100% was a complete fluke and will in no way be repeated again, although the subject is generally easy. But maybe I'm not being challenged enough in it? Who knows!

I shall set up a tag list then!!!

Glad it's not just me who thought that! And no pls GCSE Physics was the best so much Astronomy A Level is just boring stuff I don't care about
Ahhh yeah that can be a bit of a curse too! Even if you don't particularly enjoy it, at least you're good at it I suppose? Although I am the biggest hypocrite in saying that as I hate everything that doesn't interest me no matter how easy it is Wait and see as the year goes on, it may well get much harder and they could just be easing you in!

We only did a tiny sub-section on astronomy - did I miss out?
Interest certainly helps massively when it comes to enjoying a subject. I'll remain hopeful that music will get better later on in the year!!