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el’s year 13 diary ⭐️

I decided to start of of these on a whim, since I haven’t seen many humanties/creative blogs :smile:) I’m doing (Eduqas) English Lit, (OCR) Classical Civ, and (Edexel) Art and Design and am predicted A*A*A and am applying for Classics next month!

My art course isn’t going very well at the moment (teacher not helping at all) and I got a B for Year 12, so my main goal this year is to improve my art grade :smile: I also come from a low achieving college so I do most of my research independently.

Anywho, that’s all for today, will update monthly??
El (they/he)
(edited 2 months ago)

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Original post by waffelton
I decided to start of of these on a whim, since I haven’t seen many humanties/creative blogs :smile:) I’m doing (Eduqas) English Lit, (OCR) Classical Civ, and (Edexel) Art and Design and am predicted A*A*A* and am applying for Classics next month!

My art course isn’t going very well at the moment (teacher not helping at all) and I got a B for Year 12, so my main goal this year is to improve my art grade :smile: I also come from a low achieving college so I do most of my research independently.

Anywho, that’s all for today, will update monthly??
El (they/he)

Do you want this to be moved to the Grow Your Grades forum :smile:
Reply 2
Original post by flowersinmyhair
Do you want this to be moved to the Grow Your Grades forum :smile:

sure!
Original post by waffelton
sure!

Moved to Grow your Grades :smile::smile:
Hi @waffelton just to let you know I've moved your blog over to the new forum for Grow Your Grades 2023-24. Good luck with everything!
Reply 5
second week of school!! I talked to my art teacher a few days back and she says I was doing well, but watch her just plonk me a B when it comes to assessments. I did my English and Classics FAs last week as well, and they went alright, I think. Kind of forgot how to write essays though haha.
Original post by waffelton
second week of school!! I talked to my art teacher a few days back and she says I was doing well, but watch her just plonk me a B when it comes to assessments. I did my English and Classics FAs last week as well, and they went alright, I think. Kind of forgot how to write essays though haha.

It'll soon come flooding back! What do you have on this week?
Reply 7
week 3!! I got my FA1 back for Classics and got an A* which is cool! I also had a long talk with one of my art teachers about grades, and she’s going to mark my sketchbook and make me a detailed plan to raise them, so hopefully that goes well :smile: I also got my confirmation email from Oxford for my CLAT test (which was very scary). This weekend I’m sending my personal statement out to my tutors for them to mark the first draft!
Reply 8
Original post by waffelton
week 3!! I got my FA1 back for Classics and got an A* which is cool! I also had a long talk with one of my art teachers about grades, and she’s going to mark my sketchbook and make me a detailed plan to raise them, so hopefully that goes well :smile: I also got my confirmation email from Oxford for my CLAT test (which was very scary). This weekend I’m sending my personal statement out to my tutors for them to mark the first draft!


also forgot to say that I finished the first draft of my art essay!! it’s just little incomplete sentences organised into paragraph, but it’s already around 1000 words which is good (wordcount is 3000). I have SO many references haha
Original post by waffelton
week 3!! I got my FA1 back for Classics and got an A* which is cool! I also had a long talk with one of my art teachers about grades, and she’s going to mark my sketchbook and make me a detailed plan to raise them, so hopefully that goes well :smile: I also got my confirmation email from Oxford for my CLAT test (which was very scary). This weekend I’m sending my personal statement out to my tutors for them to mark the first draft!

Oh wow, when will you be doing the CLAT?

Sounds like a very positive chat with your art teachers. What topic are you doing for your art coursework?
Oh wow, when will you be doing the CLAT?

Sounds like a very positive chat with your art teachers. What topic are you doing for your art coursework?

I’ll be doing the CLAT on the 19th, and my art topic is literature!!
week four!
I got my English grade back, an A (I’ve never been good at small mark questions), and my art grade (still a B, but a higher B). My art teacher said I’m 8 marks off an A, and gave me some pointers on how to raise my grade, which I’m currently putting into action. I talked to my other art teacher about predicted grades as well, since I need to be predicted an A for Oxford, and she said she’d have a meeting with my teacher about it, so fingers crossed!!

I finished my personal statement and sent it to my teachers, and on Monday my local university’s admissions team will be coming in, and I’ve booked a one-to-one with them to look over my personal statement!!

I’ve got to write a Hamlet 45 marker over the weekend, and next week I’ve got another Classics assessment, so hopefully that goes well :smile:
week five!!
got my feedback from my personal statement back from my teachers, and turns out I didn’t have to do the 45 marker or 20 marker after all. I talked to my art teacher again about grades, and she said she has to talk to her manager about it (fingers crossed).
Over the weekend, I’m going to work on my personal statement more, finish my Hamlet essay, finish the first draft of my art essay, and do a bunch of art work.
Hopefully everything goes well!!
Original post by waffelton
week five!!
got my feedback from my personal statement back from my teachers, and turns out I didn’t have to do the 45 marker or 20 marker after all. I talked to my art teacher again about grades, and she said she has to talk to her manager about it (fingers crossed).
Over the weekend, I’m going to work on my personal statement more, finish my Hamlet essay, finish the first draft of my art essay, and do a bunch of art work.
Hopefully everything goes well!!


Sounds like you're already super busy! Fingers crossed that your art teachers agree that you deserve the predicted A grade. What's your Hamlet essay about?
week six! (now with pictures :smile:)
I finished my Hamlet essay (on the presentation on Denmark) and the first draft of my Art coursework! I also started my EPQ this week—I’m starting to look at the influence of imperial ideology in Rome. My art teacher predicted me an A, and I sent in my application to Oxford, Durham, Manchester, Nottingham and Liverpool today :smile: Applying was quite stressful since my details weren’t saving for some reason?? after a while it fixed itself though haha.
F6E7664C-50F1-488A-90B0-3D427DBE2F5C.jpeg
I started the CLAT revision crunch, and it was surprisingly easier than I thought—I just need to work on my timing!! Writing in foreign languages felt really cool and sort of brought me back to my code cracking phase in primary school haha :tongue:
1AA1DE14-DBE6-427F-8E6F-844725247E62.jpeg
I haven’t had a lot time to do much practical art work this week, so over the weekend I want to get a bunch of artwork done, especially since next week I want to focus more on CLAT revision in my free time, and will be missing an art class to do my test.
Original post by waffelton
week six! (now with pictures :smile:)
I finished my Hamlet essay (on the presentation on Denmark) and the first draft of my Art coursework! I also started my EPQ this week—I’m starting to look at the influence of imperial ideology in Rome. My art teacher predicted me an A, and I sent in my application to Oxford, Durham, Manchester, Nottingham and Liverpool today :smile: Applying was quite stressful since my details weren’t saving for some reason?? after a while it fixed itself though haha.
F6E7664C-50F1-488A-90B0-3D427DBE2F5C.jpeg
I started the CLAT revision crunch, and it was surprisingly easier than I thought—I just need to work on my timing!! Writing in foreign languages felt really cool and sort of brought me back to my code cracking phase in primary school haha :tongue:
1AA1DE14-DBE6-427F-8E6F-844725247E62.jpeg
I haven’t had a lot time to do much practical art work this week, so over the weekend I want to get a bunch of artwork done, especially since next week I want to focus more on CLAT revision in my free time, and will be missing an art class to do my test.

Love that you're using photos, hope to see some of your art work soon!
week seven!!

I didn’t do much practical work this week for Art because I was taking the CLAT on Thursday, but hopefully over half term I’ll manage to get a bunch done.

Annoyingly my art teacher also marked me as absent on in Thursday when I was taking the CLAT when I wasn’t?? (I missed the start of the lesson so should it be a late??) so I’ll have to take that up with the school when it starts again.


I got the 20 marker I did for Classics back and got an A, which I was pretty happy about since 20 markers are my weakest point. We also started the Bacchae which is my favourite so I’m really happy about that :smile:

For English I need to finish the first draft of my coursework over the half term, which is comparing redemption in The Kite Runner and Heart of Darkness.

I think the CLAT went pretty well; the language just sort of clicked for me?? Anyway, I’m glad nothing really went wrong like what I’ve heard about the other online tests haha. I also got my first offer back—Classics at Liverpool (BBC) which was quite exciting! Anyway, I’m really looking forward to week’s break and a chance to catch up after last week.
(edited 1 year ago)
half term!
To be honest, I haven’t done as much work as I have hoped—but I still have time :smile:
I started making the book, and painted the pages red, and would have been done today, except I left it near my heater which made it all wet?? So that’s on hold for now.
700B6733-84E6-4E10-98FD-0BD7EACC8645.jpeg
I started my A1 painting, but I probably don’t have enough paint at home to finish it, so that’s on hold until Monday as well. Here’s the underpainting I did, but the proportions are a bit off so I might restart it?? Idk.
E4158196-9A69-4E74-8EFD-0E5EA13374BE.jpeg
I’m working on the first draft of my English coursework today, and the second draft of my Art coursework, but I’m just not really in the mood :frown:

I got an offer from Nottingham a few days ago which I am quite happy about. Just waiting on Manchester, Durham, and Ox now. On Tuesday, I hope to talk to my classics teacher about sending in written work for Ox, so hopefully that goes smoothly.
week eight + nine!
Since coming back from half-term I’ve been doing a lot of work! In Art, our prompt is currently ‘take a risk’ so I’m working towards making stage props to create an immersive experience! Currently, (since my teacher said it was too risky to start straight away), I made some intaglio prints of my plan and am continuing to work on my monster book. (I’d show a picture but idk how to on the new update) I also plan on working on my coursework, since our third draft is due in on the 20th, and mine is still really rough.

In English, we’re focusing more on Hamlet since our mocks are in two weeks, and my teacher wants to have it covered so we can answer the question. I really like Hamlet (Laertes supremacy) but my classmates don’t haha!! Over the weekend, I hope to finish some more of my coursework, since our first draft is also due in by the 20th.

In Classics, we’ve nearly finished with the Bacchae, and will be doing a 30 marker next week. We’re also doing a full World of the Hero paper and a theatre paper for our mocks which is a bit excessive but oh well. It’s also annoying that we’re not off time-table for mocks since that means we can’t finish full papers in one session. Over the next week, I need to find some scholars to use in my 30 markers and commit them to memory 🙂
(edited 1 year ago)
Reply 19
week 10!
I’ve nearly finished my monster book for art! Just waiting for it to dry so I can paint and film it! We’re still working on ‘take a risk’, so this week I did an A1 painting of my OC, and I did a bunch of intaglio printing, which I’m actually starting to enjoy?? We have until the 4th December to work on this project which will form our grades for our mocks, but I’m asking my teacher to mark my entire project to see if my mark has gone up or not… I’ve also got a new sketchbook (number 3!) which is exciting 🙂 The third draft of our essay is due in on Monday. I did a bunch of work on it today and it’s nearly ready, so I’ll be glad to get it finally done.

Our English NEA is also due in on Monday, but since it’s just the first draft I’m not too stressed about that. I need to flesh out a few of my points and add in some scholars, but I’m quite happy with my response so far.

I’m also so sick of my EPQ question… (Violence in Imperial Rome.) I’m trying to hype myself up to finish it so I can just get it out of the way. We have to do a 5 minute talk in our tutor groups on something relating to our studies, so I’m doing a condensed version of my EPQ question so I’m more geared up for the talk, and so I get more inspiration for it. It’s not helping that my EPQ teacher is never in though…

We did a 30 marker in Classics today, and I think it went alright. It’s the only subject that we’re doing full papers in for our mocks, and since we’re not off timetable, it’s going on for three weeks. I’m excited to start the Frogs, though, and watched the Frogs film on YouTube (the one in Ancient Greek) to help me look at the narrative a bit.

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