Sixth Form Survival Guide

So you may remember me writing about how happy I was to have finished my exams and Year 12 a few weeks back. Well now the very brief relaxation period is over, and I am back in full swing of school, except I am now unofficially in Year 13 (aaagh!) and therefore I am starting all new courses! In all honestly, I am actually super excited about this. I think it will give me a real good chance to just start fresh and get myself really organised, and I am just so ready to throw myself into A2. I feel like I improved pretty much everything about myself in Year 12 in comparison to every other school year, and I've really changed as a person since September, but obviously, there are still some things I wish I could change/do better, and now a whole new academic year is ahead of me, what better way to reflect on the previous year and set myself some goals for this year than to do a blog post, as well as incorporating some little tips and advice for those of you who may be starting sixth form in September, from my own experiences.

Firstly, I want to talk about the thing that upcoming sixth formers probably worry about the most - what to wear to school. It is really difficult trying to know what to do when you've spent the past 11 years or so having your school attire chosen for you. It's completely natural at this time to worry that everyone else is going to look better than you at school and have nicer clothes etc. etc. But, I can honestly say, that NOBODY cares what you're wearing. I probably spent a good hour every night before school in my first week of Sixth Form pulling out various clothes from my wardrobe and stressing about what I was going to wear, especially as my Sixth Forms dress code is smart, which I wasn't too used to wearing, but after all of the worrying, I would just turn up the next day for not one single person to give the slightest care about what I was wearing. It seems so silly now when I look back, but everyone does feel the same way. It's especially difficult for girls because it's not as simple as a blazer and a tie, but just don't over complicate it, and make sure you're comfortable.

Next, one of the most important changes I made when I started the Sixth Form was to throw myself into as many extra curricular activities as I could. I don't ever remember getting involved in one single activity at school from Years 7-11 and I regret it so much now. When you get to an age where you're deciding on your future, you'll realise how important it is to show that you are a well rounded person. I can't say enough how important it is to get involved more with your school. It's so easily done and it's basically like having a brilliant, polished CV/UCAS application handed to you on a plate. It will make your time at school so much more enjoyable, and I think the more involved you are, the more respected you will be from everyone at your school.

Over the past year, my style of work and organisation has changed so many times I've lost count. I started the year just simply doing all of my work with a pen and paper, but the further into the year I got, I hated the way my folders looked. I knew I'd never be able to revise from scruffy, boring pieces of work, so I started to bring my Laptop to school at around Easter time. This involved me having to type out every single piece of work I had already done, because I couldn't stand the thought of my folders not looking consistent. I then continued to do all of my work at school on my Laptop, which eventually turned into me typing all of my work on my IPad as it was easier to carry around. Although it did help me learn a lot by retyping my work, it actually resulted in me being more organised than ever because I would always forget to print my work after each lesson, and then I'd be left with dozens of unprinted documents which I didn't know how to file into the right places and although the work did look nice when printed, it just caused me a lot of unnecessary stress. I didn't really resolve my issue of how to present my work in a suitable, simple way until it came to revising. I made my own revision books for each subject using a pen and paper, but I made sure to include lots of colours and use lots of different styles of writing with different pens just to make it visual interesting. I put little flaps on my work and drew little cartoons to explain what I was talking about, and as a whole it just looked so much better than just lines and lines of writing like I used to present my work. I find that presenting my work like this actually makes it fun to do, and so I will definitely be carrying this through to Year 13 with me.

Lastly, I want to talk about the jump from GCSE's to A-Levels and how to make the work more manageable. If you've not yet started Sixth Form, you've probably been told alot about how much harder it is. After just completing a ridiculous amount of exams for about 10 different subject, you've probably brushed that thought off and marked it as nonsense. I too thought that at one point, but I can honestly tell you, I would happily resit all of my exams for my 10 GCSE subjects than my 3 AS levels. It is less subjects, but there is so much to learn. Take one unit from GCSE's and multiply the work it took to complete that by 5 and you have A-Levels. However, remember that you are now only taking subjects you enjoy, so as long as you have a good attitude and work ethic, it is completely manageable. To make it easier, I highly recommend doing a lot of your own research and reading around the subject. Teacher don't really spoon feed you what you need to know as they did at GCSEs and you are left to your own devices to an extent. I've also learnt that leaving all of your revision to the end of the year is just about as helpful as a calculator without a battery - it will not do you any favours. I am guilty of this to an extent, as I left the majority of my revision pretty late, however, I have made myself a promise to make little revision summary pages every weekend of what I have learnt in the previous week. This way, all of my work will be ready to revise from as it will already be summarised, and I should have hopefully remembered it alot better because of this when it comes to revising. I also recommend testing yourself at the end of each unit to see how much you can remember. I did this for one of my subjects and I found it incredibly useful.

Hopefully my advice will be useful to those of you who are approaching your first year of Sixth Form, and maybe it could even just motivate those of you who are at the same stage as myself. Either way, as long as you work your hardest and apply the right attitude, it should make your time as a sixth form student much more enjoyable, as it has for myself!

Good luck to any GCSE or A-Level students awaiting their exam results!

What are your tips for surviving Sixth Form?

What worries you the most about A-Levels?

Prom: To Do and To Not

So for many 15-16 year old's in Britain right now, we are currently in Prom season as teens all over the country have reached the end of their secondary school lives. I still remember this time last year when I reached the end of an absolutely fantastic period of my life. Its safe to say I was a mess. However, I remember how excited I was planning for my end of school Prom, as I'm sure many of you currently are! I was on the Prom committee for my school so I got the opportunity to be quite involved with organising the Prom for my year, which was a brilliant opportunity and made the whole experience a lot more exciting! If I had spent as much time revising for my GCSE's as I had spent planning the Prom, I probably would have achieved A*'s all round!

Anyway, after all that planning, I did end up regretting some of the choices I made, however, I still did manage to have the best night ever, spent with some truly amazing people. I've put together a list of to do's and not to do's using my own experience to help you along the way to having the greatest night ever and celebrate the end of an era! 

Do:

1. Make sure you take spare make-up in your clutch. I stupidly only took a lipstick and immediately regretted it as soon as I arrived at my friends house for pre-drinks. It was a really hot day and my face was literally melting. I had spent so long trying to perfect my make-up for it to smudge off before I even reached Prom, so I'd highly recommend taking some basic essentials like powder and concealer to keep your make-up looking nice. I'd also recommend taking a little packet of tissues to help with any touch ups.
2. TAKE A CAMERA. And I don't mean your phone unless you have alot of free memory. To be on the safe side and make sure you don't miss any picture perfect memories, take your camera with an empty memory card. You'll get much better quality pictures and you wont have to worry about running out of memory or your phone battery dying (especially if you are going to an after party and relying on your phone battery to last until the early hours of the morning!) I took my camera to pre-Prom but left it in my car because I didn't think I'd need it at the actual Prom. I was wrong, and ended up having to take all of my photos on snap chat (rubbish quality and most of them didn't save) because my phone memory was very low. You will regret it so much if you don't capture the memories properly!
3. Make sure that your dress fits perfectly. Try it, try it again, and try it again. I had my dress custom made to fit, so the dress should have fitted my body perfectly, however, this wasn't the case and I had to get it altered. I had spent a lot more than I had wanted to on my dress and the altering, so when I tried it on after getting it resized, I just ignored the fact it was still a little tight in some places so that I wouldn't have to spend any more money. This was a bad idea as when I got in the Hummer with my friends and sat down, my dress split right on the booty. Luckily, it was on the inside so it wasn't noticeable but I was panicking so much on the way to Prom, and I struggled to enjoy my experience in the Hummer because of this. MAKE SURE YOUR DRESS FITS!
4. Wear in your shoes. If you don't want to spend most of the night in bare feet like I did (gross, I know), make sure you wear your shoes in so they fit comfortably. I couldn't last very long at all in my shoes because I had barley worn them before Prom, and it's difficult to feel like a Princess when you're either in pain whilst dancing in your glass slippers or running round with dirty bare feet. 
5. Depending on the length and thickness of your hair, I would seriously consider having your hair up. Prom falls in the Summer, when the weather will most likely be hot (depending on the British weather). Hot weather, lots of people in one space, lots of dancing and long, thick hair all over you do not go well together. It's difficult to enjoy yourself when you're worried about your make-up melting off and your hair going disgusting because you're too hot, so having your hair up will help you to stay cool. I really regret having my hair down - it looked awful by the end of the night because I was so hot, and dancing whilst I was so hot made me feel sick. I think up-do's look much more formal and are a lot more appropriate for the occasion anyway.

Don't:

That dreadful mane

1. Don't think it's a good idea to wear 26" long hair extensions to your prom. You will only spend the rest of your life regretting it whilst comparing all pictures of yourself to the lady from the Grudge. I had worn hair extensions for years prior to my prom, however, I had never gone longer than 22" which fell just under my ribs. I don't know why I thought it would be a great idea to suddenly change this for my Prom. I didn't think the extra 4" would make such a huge difference and so I didn't even try on my new hair until a few hours before the Prom, which meant that whether I liked it or not, however my hair looked with the extensions was how it was going to stay. Honestly, at the time I loved it. I thought I was so cool, with my Rapunzel length hair, however, about an hour into Prom, I regretted it so much. I was boiling hot, my head was itching, and I looked like I had been dragged through a bush (slight exaggeration but regardless, it was a bad look). My fellow extension lovers, stick to what you know, and if you can bare it, natural is probably best!
2. Don't go out of your comfort zone when it comes to heels. I though that because it was Prom, everything had to be OTT. I went for a ridiculous height of heels, and I towered over all of my friends in the photos and looked like an idiot. I couldn't walk and nearly broke my ankle as I fell down a crack as soon as I arrived at the Prom venue. Again, this made it difficult to enjoy
   the Prom, and I really wished that I had chosen smaller, more wearable shoes. 
3. Be careful when considering your dress type. I chose a white floor-length mermaid style dress
   with a little train on the back. I was initially just worried about the fact it was white, because I feared I'd spill something down it and look like a scruff, however, I did manage to avoid this luckily. It was actually the train that spoiled the dress for me because I kept treading on it and it was making me slip over. I had to spend a lot of the night carrying the bottom of my dress because it was tripping me up and I was worried that it was making my dress filthy, and I couldn't have looked very glamorous carrying round half of my dress in my arms.

   

   Shoutout to my Mum, 6 months pregnant and still whipped

4. Less is more. Stick to what you know with make-up, nails, tan etc. and don't go out of your comfort zone. For me, this mainly applied to make-up and acrylic nails. I had never had my nails done before and I decided to get these ridiculously lengthed talon stiletto nails (I don't know what I was thinking). This made it so difficult to do anything, especially make-up. For Prom, I decided to completely ignore everything I knew, and do a whole new look that I had never tried before and was very dramatic. Although it didn't actually look bad looking back, I spent much of the night feeling uncomfortable and paranoid that it looked stupid. It was also very thick and heavy, and it did smudge quite a lot because of this. so I wish I had gone with a more natural, light look.
5. Be careful when ordering from online companies! The company I ordered my dress from was DIY Dress. I found it after searching far and wide on the internet, and it had the most beautiful dresses, which all seemed to be reduced in price. It wasn't until I ordered my dress that I found a review website which stated the company was actually China based (even though it stated it was a UK company on the website) and it often presented customers with horrific replicas of celebrity style gowns, who then struggle very much to get a refund or any kind of apology. Luckily, this wasn't the case for me and my dress was beautiful even though it was sized completely wrong despite the fact I paid extra to have it custom made. It did leave me very stressed in the run up to prom, which wasn't ideal considering I was sitting my GCSE exams at the same time, so I would avoid ordering from any unknown websites and stick to what you know. Also be sure to research into customer reviews before you order from anywhere! Although I was lucky in my situation, after hearing of other people's experiences, I will never order from this company or any similar companies again.

So there we have it! My personal experiences and advice for all of you upcoming prom-goers! It may be completely irrelevant to some of you, and others may disagree with some of my tips, however, it just comes from my own personal experience and it would be advice that I would personally follow if I were to go to Prom again. I have followed this advice for similar occasions since my summer Prom last year, and it has definitely helped and enabled me to enjoy the experience a lot more. 

I hope that everyone who is awaiting their Prom's this year have the bestest time ever! I can honestly say it will be one of the greatest experiences you will have, and you will make some fantastic memories. Be sure to enjoy yourself regardless of how you look at your prom, because the most important thing is the fact that you get to spend time making memories and having fun with the important people in your lives! 

Do you have any tips for how to make the most of a Prom?

What are your best memories from Prom?

P.S. Lets take a moment to appreciate the fact that the only thing
 I have ever won was this at Prom. I wonder why...