Education, education, education
I have been holding off writing a post to report on how the new year has gone because I have been waiting until I was sure a particular issue which I will describe later was sorted. Now it has been, I am very happy with my situation: it is clear that my expectations during the latter part of last year that the Sixth Form would be a lot better than the previous five years were correct and I am finally enjoying learning again. I have said for five years that I “enjoy school but not secondary school” and this is no longer the case. I am enjoying my time now. There are so many things that are better.
For those who don’t know me, I am taking maths, further maths, history, physics and philosophy (shortened on my timetable to the unpronounceable “phphy”. I was also aiming to take politics but this wouldn’t timetable. I am glad that I was persuaded not to persue it as really, the work would have been too much and I wouldn’t be doing a lot else (such as writing this entry). However, it seems my attempts to do six AS levels caused the single politics group to have an awkward timetable and then I didn’t actually join it, as the teacher has been telling her pupils (or students – I generally object to this term but since officially we are and can join the NUS in the Sixth Form, I am being somewhat less verbal about it). My subjects are working out very well; maths is great but I hope it doesn’t get too hard once we end the rehashing of GCSE material. My marks are looking fine at the moment. Physics is also interesting but a lot of it is just the same as mechanics lessons, which is good for reinforcement but can also be a bit boring and repetative at times. However, after Christmas, we go on to “Waves, Particles and Quantum Phenomenon” which is very exciting. After Christmas, I will have half an A-level in maths, which is an interesting thought.
History isn’t quite so positive. For two major assessment points, that is the end of Y9 and of course my GCSEs, I have underperformed in this subject and I’m never quite sure why. I do find in intermediate tests and thought I enjoyed it; I certainly find the study facinating. However, I seem to like it less and less as I am always unsure that I am doing the right amount and critically the right direction of work. A-level is different to GCSE – there is more knowledge and more essay writing, but at least it is only one question per exam. While I suspect I will drop this after Y12 (I don’t know yet of course, but out of the four it seems the most likely right now) I do intend to work hard to get that A, even if I am not very good at it. I am always unsure of my ability and this doesn’t make it too much fun.
Despite the fact I have only had two taught hours of it and thus it is hard to make a fair judgement, philosophy is looking very good at the moment. The group is interesting and wants to engage and is a pretty good size, so it should be a way to add some arguments to my convictions… There is at least one arrogant one in there who can be engaged in debate. Debating within the school is hopefully changing this year too with the return of “Debating X-Treme”, a group for more formal debating. We are pulling in more people from the English department to popularise it and now that Mr Moore-Bridger is finally in every day of the week things are a lot better because as a pupil it was pretty hard for me to organise anything proper. We are having internal competitions to decide on a team to go forward to national things which we miserably failed at organasing before and this is positive. Mr M-B has suggested that we also ask the Debating Society, “the thing which started it all”, to act as an audience and to try and formalise debating more there. My opinion is that this would be great as our own self-developed style doesn’t allow a great deal of depth, but we will propose it to the group and hope they are willing. I have no desire to force it upon them as this would be totally unfair as I am concerned they may not be willing to put in the extra work. But we shall see.
My posts often seem to contain the notion that I am busy in some way, probably because I am writing them whilst thinking “arg, I haven’t updated my blog for a while because I have been so busy”. This is definately the case now and I am completely snowed under with homework most of the time. It is infact rather ridiculus at times in the sense that I don’t do a lot else. At the weekend I only got about six hours, not including my job on a Saturday morning, at home working on Wikimedia, freenode and SilentFlame which seems rather short. However, Tim from my newsagent tells me that they pile it on in the first few weeks to ‘prove’ that the Sixth Form is harder work and hopefully it will ease off. I certainly hope so, otherwise I won’t have a lot of time for my other activities and this will be mad. I have given up Oxfam every week to do it in the school holidays only already and I don’t want to have to give up more. This may of course be because I am putting in a lot of effort, but that represents History where I am working very hard for obvious reasons.
As promised, I will go over the reason that it took me so long to update my blog with school, aside from a lack of time (tonight I have slightly less homework and tomorrow morning free to do it in). Back in May/June, I had been told that it would be requested that I be put in a particular form next year, one with a teacher I knew well and that was based in the library, where I live. However, come the Sixth Form induction I did not get this form and was rather surprised, so decided to immeadiately chase it up, knowing it ought to be achieved before the proper school holiday. I was told that a member of staff had expressed concerns that I was not branching out enough by being attached to the library. Surprised that the member of staff who made the request was seemingly not being listened to, my mother wrote into the school to request reconsideration. For the past three weeks I have been fighting hard for the form change, something which required a great deal of time and effort on my part. But I believe I was victorious through my perseverance and am now where I want to be. I am happy that things will be that bit easier in that form. Everything is sorted for a great year.
Quite how A @ GCSE = underperfoming is beyond me, Comrade
SGE has a point, Sean.
No idea how you don’t go mad, Sean, really I don’t. I feel overworked and I’m not really that busy at all.
Debating at High Storrs, meanwhile, dies a sorry death. It seems that no-one at our school actually cares enough to give up football for debating. Irritating.
Good luck with the History and that. Oddly enough, your A-Level choices seem to be basically what I am considering. According to your sister, we are very alike, so to differentiate I’d probably better choose Carpentry or something.
Heh… your library is tiny. Compared to the arcane ceiling of High Storrs.
You doing the SCBA this year, or are Sixth Form not allowed?
Debating died? That is a shame. Well done for trying.
The library is indeed tiny. The new school will apparently bigger, but looking at the plans shows a distinct lack of bookshelves – there are just computers and tables instead.
Of course I am doing SCBA! I will be at the award cermony too, as usual.