Front Line

Front Line - Chapter 14 - Year 12

Front Line

Chapter Fourteen – Year 12

  I had gone back to not looking forward to the first day of school, this would have been the start of the two years all students looked forward to, Post 16. Years 12 & 13 would be allowed to wear their own clothes, have lockers, and more freedom, or so we all thought. I had received a letter about a week into the summer holiday informing the students that they would now have to wear ‘smart dress’, so the five years in which I had been planning out my ‘alpha dog’ lifestyle, remained in shattered ruins as did the rest of my summer.

  Not knowing what to do on the first day, I naturally went to where was familiar to me. Walking around to where my friends and I usually gathered I saw the thankfully familiar faces, my best friend David and a few other of our cohorts who hadn’t left as at this point in time, we were allowed to leave at the end of Year 11 to either go to college or find some work. Still not knowing what I wanted to do, I stayed in school and took the options school thought were best for me, not knowing that it wouldn’t help me out in the long run.

  Standing there talking to David and a couple other mates, all of them interested in my new look and lifestyle, I noticed a familiar face. Standing not far away from me was the face I’ve been dreading to see, it was Kaci. She stood in her new Post 16 ‘smart dress’ clothes, trying to look grown up and failing miserably. Everything inside me was hoping she’d come up to me and talk about what had happened during the summer, but she didn’t, she just stood talking to her friend who strangely resembled Sid the sloth from the Ice Age movies. I was told by her mum to be only friends with her in school, so why she wasn’t talking to me now confirmed my suspicions that she had been told something about me which wasn’t the truth. Despite all within me telling me to go talk to her, I buried all feelings and turned a blind eye hoping for a better future without her in the picture, no matter how painful it was to do so.

  After eventually finding out where I was meant to go, it was time to meet my new tutor. His name was Mr Trevelyan, a science teacher everyone was afraid of until you got to know him. We chose our seats and were pretty much told everything that would be going on, especially the weekly Thursday quiz which was quite a highly anticipated event apparently. We were let out after the bell had gone, telling us to get to our first lesson as A-Level students, making my way out the door I ignored another familiar face. This time it was Jamie, my crush of two years. He had the tutor room above me, part of me was thankful he was not in mine but at the same time I wanted to be close to him. Now I had to endure seeing him every morning, still hating him for what happened but still wanting to see his face every day.

  The first day went okay, to start off with was a lighter than expected introduction to the world of psychology. Following that was English literature, which was slightly more pleasurable. I would only have two subjects a day. For example I would have psychology two times a week, three hours on a Monday and two on a Thursday. English I would have also two times a week, Monday and Thursday again. RE I would have also two times a week on Tuesday and Friday, Tuesday and Friday afternoon I had off as well as I did Wednesday so I had a lot more time for home study or anything else I wanted to do. It sounded great until we were told we had to do some sort of voluntary experience to add to our CV’s, which would take up every break time for me, I couldn’t complain, I had it easy but still with anything they threw at us, it felt unfair at the time.

  For the rest of the year, things pretty much stayed the same way. The classes were the same every week, I helped year 7’s read every Monday and Thursday, I had Wednesdays off and Tuesday and Friday afternoons. Nothing really much changed except for when exam season came around, sooner and quicker than expected. I had avoided both Jamie and Kaci up until this point, now the three of us were seeing much more of each other thanks to mock exams and same classes with extra time in hours I would not be in school. My EPQ, Extended Project Qualification, still hadn’t been completed but it was the same for us all, so we had until the September of the same year to finish it.

  I do well in class, B’s and C’s mostly in my essays, English Literature was different because we took the exam back in the January to get it out the way, now we had the time to work on our coursework which would account for half of our overall grade at the end of year 13. In the end I thought I did well and the results proved otherwise, I failed two of my three courses, not because I didn’t pay attention and didn’t study, which I did, it just fell on the day that the exam spec didn’t snyc with me. So the following year I would re-take the same exams. I was heartbroken because all the hard work and effort I had put in in class, felt like it went to waste.

  After the exams were finished and tears were shed, we met with our teachers of the exams we didn’t do as well in. My teacher and I went through all the things I didn’t get completely right, and some partially right, and I was able to answer them correctly and fully. The thing with me is, unless I am passionate about the subject, I won’t do well in the exam but in class I will pass with flying colours. I was just one of those unfortunate people that when it came down to it, no one judges you for your class work but for the exam. If people saw how well I did in class, it would be a whole new story.

So with this behind me, mostly, with the summer longer than we had ever had it before stretching out before me, I hoped that I would further advance with Jamie and make some sort of headway with Kaci. Hoping that I would find the answer to the question I had been longing to ask her but have been too scared to. Time was moving on weather I liked it or not.