How to survive Year 10 | My Experience

I know that going into year 10, being near the top of the school and beginning your GCSE's can be stressful, which is why i have decided to lay it out for anyone who is worried, hopefully you will find this helpful if you're moving up to year 10. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask me in the comments or email me.
Now before i try and help you with your worries and thoughts about year 10, i thought I'd share my experience.
I have to admit, i was terrified of going into year 10. Year 9 was such a relaxed year, where i just sailed through classes chatting to friends and having a laugh (doing all the important work as well of course). The only stressful thing was choosing my options. I knew i definitely wanted to do BTEC Dance, which took up 2 of the 4 options i had. Although this year it only takes up one option (annoyed much..). In the end i chose Child Development and ICT. I thought i made a good choice, i either want to dance or work with children as a career, and ICT is just useful for all types of jobs now a days.

After a not so good summer, i walked into school feeling slightly uncomfortable, which is just the norm after the summer holidays. I went to my new form room and sat down with my friends and had a chat about what we had been up to. And then we got the 'now you're in year 10' talk, and everything seemed to become serious. We were made to feel very grown up, which is a massive change from the year before. The transition from year 9 to 10 is probably the biggest, for a number of reasons. We got our timetables and settled in to the new year.
I enjoyed my options, and most of the core subjects. Now i don't know if this applies to all schools, but the amount of subjects you have on your timetable is alot less than the years before, when you did all the subjects. You have your 4 options, maths, English, science's, Re and PE. The work you do in the core subjects also changes.


English: There are two GCSE's available in English, language and literature. Throughout year 10 you have to do several controlled assessments. Again, this is what happens at my school, i don't know about anywhere else. Each mark from the controlled assessments do not determine your actual grade it is just an estimate and at the end all the marks from all the controlled assessments you do are added up and that shows what grade you are. I know, i was confused! I thought I'd achieved B's and C's on my last five controlled assessments, but it turns out that the total marks from all of them gave me a high B, with 3 marks of an A. I was quite pleased:) (I've just completed my sixth controlled assessment and i got an A! yay!)
English is a subject which i quite enjoy, I'm in set 1. I don't get too bored in the lessons (like i do maths and science, I'll go into more detail later..) and i find it quite interesting.


Maths: Oh no :( Although I'm in set 2, i know alot of people HATE maths (hats off to people who enjoy it), I'm definitely one of those people who drifts off as soon as they sit down in maths class. It doesn't help that my maths teacher is soooo boring. In my school, there are three modules, Unit 1, 2 and 3. Unit 1 is in march of year 10, unit 2 is in November of year 11, and unit 3 is in June of year 11. Thankfully, i have already got unit 1 out of the way, which is on data and number. It's worth 27% of your final grade, i got a B:) I'm working towards unit 2 and it is SO hard. It's alot harder than unit 1 in my opinion, if you love algebraic fractions then you'll be fine! I can safely say that i do not love it.
Unit 2 is worth 33% and is on algebra and number, and unit 3, which is on shapes number and algebra is 40%. I am as bored writing this paragraph as you are reading it trust me! One more thing, unit 1 is calculator, unit 2 is non calculator and i think unit 3 is calculator....i may be wrong. That's that one out of the way:)

Science: A bit of a love or hate subject. I'm in set 3, although the top set is the people taking triple science, so technically I'm in set 2. I quite like the subject (well, i like biology and some of physics, don't get me started on chemistry) however, my class, just no. I may do another post on my science class, it would take soo long. It's nothing bad about them, just me and social anxiety and a class full of people already in small close groups just don't mix, i feel very out of place. In my school they are experimenting modular science exams, although they're going back to the normal way for the year 9's next year. So unfortunately, this may not be any use to you and your school. In modular science, you have to sit 6 exams, 2 on each subject. Biology 1 and Physics 1 are taken in June of year 10 (i have completed these, i think i did ok?!), Chemistry 1 and 2 are taken in January of year 11 i think, and Biology 2 and Physics 2 are taken in June of year 11.
I quite like that they are spread out, means less stress, which is always good!

The other core subject is religious studies which i won't go into too much, there are two exams you take over the two years, you learn six topics which you can chose four of to answer in the exam. Overall, i found this subject quite easy throughout year 10, i sat with my friends and we had a good laugh and our teacher was quite chilled out and let us listen to music and get on with our work. So that was all good.

Friends: Dear oh dear oh dear.. my experience with friends in year 10 has just been mind numbing. I do feel a little uncomfortable about mentioning these friends on here or talking about them in a way in which they may get offended if they ever find this blog, i am not a bitchy person in any way but if these people did read this then it will be blown out of proportion, so i will talk about it very briefly.. Basically at the start of the year i was pretty much friends or friendly with everyone, i didn't have any enemies or people that took a dislike to me (none that ever showed it anyway..) i was generally happy. So basically, as the year went on, me and my small group of friends had a couple of arguments, but we're just teenage girls, hormones and all.. i was overall happy with my group of friends. That was, until a few weeks ago. As i said, i won't go into detail for privacy and safety reasons (for me, not them..), but basically one of our friends turned into... a mad...person. Just completely turned on one of our friends, she decided making my friends life a misery wasn't enough, and she dragged me into this huge mess. And I'm not gunna lie, it's affected me in such a big way that i just don't know what to do or whats going on anymore. You think you really know someone, you tell them your most private secrets because they're your friend, and then they're whole personality changes and it's their mission to destroy your life, this girl doesn't deserve a space on my blog but it has been an important part of year 10 for me, finding out who my real friends are and knowing that you never really know someone. I wish i could cut her out of my life completely but unfortunately, she's in 3 of my classes (where she has also decided she's going to take another friend away so I'm left with no one), and we have another year of school left. I will just rise above it and get on with my studying, as i have many target grades that are A's, and i know she will not get one GCSE higher than a C, so i don't need to waste my time worrying about it. I just thought it was important to share with you my story briefly as friends are a huge part of school, so be prepared for any arguments or bitchiness during year 10, especially if you're a girl.

So as a summary of my experience in year 10, i found most of my core subjects bearable, i have high targets and grades already, I've learned ALOT, and I've learnt about who you can trust and who my real friends are.
I think I'll do a separate post about my options and how i found them when I've completed them next year, of course I'll again do a year 11 experience post to finish my explanation of the core subjects and just my general opinion, if anyone wants to read about that!

So right now I'm doing my two weeks work experience which you do at the end of year 10 (although some schools now only have on week), so I'm not in school which I'm very happy about. I'm at my old primary school, which is strange but interesting. I'm happy not to be going into school and having stress and getting grief from certain people, it's a huge weight off my shoulders. I'm hoping the six week holiday will give these people (well, person) a chance to just grow the hell up, because i really don't want to spend all of year 11 having to worry about silly little girls when I'm focusing on my GCSE's. I feel like year 10 has been like an induction to GCSE's, now I'm ready to go into year 11 and work my socks off to get high grades in my GCSE's, because there's really no point in doing all the hard work in lessons and having all the help available of you're just going to ignore it and waste the opportunity to get some qualifications, just my opinion, but i really don't understand the people that do this, i really don't. And whats more exciting is that in a years time it will be my prom! i can't wait!

Top tips for surviving year 10:

• Don't get distracted. This means by friends, boyfriends/girlfriends, stupidity, these are YOUR GCSE's, don't let anyone ruin that.
• Make sure you decide on your options early on, you don't want to find that at the start of year 10 you don't want to take it.
• Be wise about who you hang around with and who your friends are. As i told you about my 'friendship' story, you don't want anything like this happening to you in the midst of your GCSE's, you don't need the added stress, trust me.
• Ask you teachers for help if you are struggling. I know this occurs to all years, but if you don't understand something at the beginning of the year, and leave it until a week before your exam, you're pretty much screwed. Plus it stresses you out more, if help is there, then take it!
• Revise. I cannot stress to you enough, that you need to revise. and not just before exams, like i did. Study throughout the year, and save yourself a good 3 weeks before the exam to start revising hard, as spreading it out will cause less stress and the information will stick in your brain better than last minute cramming, trust me on this one, it's not a good position to be in.
• Take time out. If you study too hard, it will have the adverse effect. Don't sit in your room for hours revising, do it in 20 minute chunks, and take an hour in between to relax and do what you like to do, whether that's hang around with friends, going shopping, anything that relaxes your brain. It's important to have fun and study at the same time, it's finding that balance between relaxing and working. You mustn't do too much or too little, however some people may have different working techniques, you will find what suits you best once you start revising and have sat a few exams, like i have.

A few of these would apply to year 11 as well, and i will have to do a year 11 post when i've finally completed it! (The day i finish is very welcome on my calender). I hope you've enjoyed hearing about my year 10 experience, and that some of my advice is helpful to you! I wish i had had some advice going into year 10, however it was an important learning curve for me as a person (inspiring talk here guys) and i feel i have grown in myself.
I have 3 days left of year 10, which i couldn't be more pleased about, this has been one of the worst school years i've had, i really hope year 11 is better and i won't be writing such a moany post about year 11 as i have about year 10 :)

Have a good year 10!

Laura x