How to: Survive Tweenagehood

1/ the big bad world of harder education

I was going to title this 'the big bad world of high school' but then came to realise that every country seems to do high school differently so it won't work. Instead, I'm just going to assume that from the ages of 11-14 you're going to go through some harder, more challenging stuff at school.

If you're in the UK, you'll know that when you hit 11 it's time for secondary school, and it can be a massive shock to suddenly be expected to do so much more work than you had been doing before. It's no longer just a few homeworks a week but a few pieces of homework every night! Staying organised in school is crucial to maintaining good grades and reducing stress levels, but I promise you it's not that hard if you start right from the beginning.

So I'm going back to school for my final year in a few days, and these are some things I did when I first started high school/ secondary school which helped me stay on top of all my work.

1. Planners are your best friend. Not only will they help you remember your timetable (because you will have put it in there hopefully) but it also means you'll never miss a homework. When a teacher says the homework for the lesson, it's easy to think that you'll remember it later at the time, but when you get home it might easily slip your mind. Writing it down takes zero effort and will help you keep track of your work.

2. Do all your work on the night you get it. This is a thing that I have carried with me right from when I was 11 to now when I am 17. And trust me, your life will be so much simpler if you do this. When you get home, put your phone aside, and focus for like 1 hour and you will probably get a considerable amount of your work done. This stops you from having to do everything last minute or staying up really late to finish your work.

And I know you'll say that you have too much work to do all in one night. Wrong. You're not doing your work productively. If you actually worked for like 1 hr 30mins max with no distractions it's most likely you will get a lot done. The only exception to this is big projects which are supposed to take like 5 hours, and those can be done by doing a little bit on them each day continuously rather than trying to do it all the night before.

3. Get a regular sleep pattern. This is one thing that I've noticed in so many of my friends - no one seems to have a regular sleep pattern but me. You need to have at least 8 hours every night, it's really not too hard. I know at the time you want to be watching Netflix for hours or scrolling through Instagram, but the next day you'll just feel tired and grotty instead of feeling awake. I just leave my phone downstairs, it's not too hard.

4. Make your notes as you go along. I remember when I was 11-14 I had tests on all my subjects at the end of the year (just internal school ones) and I would always leave writing my notes till a few weeks before. This proved very unproductive as I was writing notes for 12 subjects all at once. It may sound strange but it's a revision technique that I swear by: at the end of every day add what you learnt in the lessons to your notes. The content you learn from one lesson may take you 10 mins to write into notes, but will save you so much stress when it comes to exams.

By implementing these things into my life, I've found that I've never missed handing in a homework, I've never got stressed about the amount of work I have, and I've gotten good grades. I hope these will be helpful!

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