Oh my God!!! Just 3 weeks until Standard Grade, Higher and Advanced Higher exams are over... then everyone either goes onto a new year at school or leaves!!!
What's going to be different for you next term??

I'm going into S5 and not only am i away to start 5 Higher coures... they may be Difficult...
most of the brass players in the section i've played in since S1 are leaving too! AND that means that starting 3 weeks from now i'm going to by the most advanced Trumpet player in the WHOLE SCHOOL and 3 orchestras... I should NOT be trusted with this responsibilty!!!
all i'll do is lord it over the newbie's and try to be as intimidating as the last 1st Trumpet ( this may be hard for a 5 foot 1 girl ) but the section will be empty without the 2 other 1st trumpets and the trombone player cry! cry! cry! but i guess there's no S7.

Hope your new year is less scary...

Well, GCSEs are going to start (and 2nd GCSE year of maths!), and I hope I'll progress a little bit with all my instruments.

Also a lot of good musicians are going ot leave school orchestra/band.

I'm going to uni (hopefully) Bit of a change!

A2s? Harder more demanding work, but one fewer subject... I'll only be doing things that interest me too.

Next year will actually count towards my degree!

5 highers....oh goodie Our school is having a completly new campus built as well so moving there.

I did 5 at AS (But one was General Studies) and 3 at A2. I don't think I could have coped with 4 - I definitely don't have lots of free time, despite dropping 1 proper and 1 not proper one.

Yep, I have 5 for AS including general studies.. and I suppose four next year if you include general studies as well... but I don't cause we have no lessons in it.

Hey Trumpeteer...
I am in basically the same situation as you! I am doing Standard Grades right now and 5 Highers next year. How are you finding the exams?
All our 6th Years had their last day two days ago... I'm missing them already! Our Windband is going to be so empty And now I have to take over as first clarinet which means no more Bass Clarinet for me! We're going to Barcelona next June so I'd better start practicing!

We had a glorious general studies lesson a week. What a waste of time!

We got told they couldn't teach us, as general studies involved a knowledge of the world etc etc... and it would be pointless to try and teach... then they told us "I know it's difficult but where it says answer in continuous prose you must answer in continuous prose" I have very little faith in our sixth form head...

I hated my general studies lessons...I wish our school had had that attitude

I normally go to a practice room in General Studies

They'll be even less people in my music class!!

My exam's are going BADLY i didn't have time for revising so will probably only scrape a 1 grade in most subjects because of folio... eek!
Are S6's left yesterday... I had my French exam though so i missed the fun with eggs, flour, stink bombs, pranks, water pistoles and fairy liquid!!... For some reason i'm not that sad about that part!
And our Concert Band is going to be empty so much that the Junior band is having to be merged with the senior one otherwise we would only have 10 people!!!

hehe! The 6th Years leaver's dance was cancelled as they put cling film over the toilet seats, sillystring over the teachers, sellotaped all the handles, and basically trashed the place!
I thought the Maths credit paper 2 has been the hardest yet! When is your next exam?

Agh I would love general studies lessons if it meant more time singing in the music rooms! My friend and I got thrown out this morning, so someone could use a computer at the back! (There are many other rooms with computers that were empty.)



Hmm, it sounds good and I'm glad I don't have lessons, but they do patronise us horribly.

My next exam is Int 2 Music on the 15th.. so i guess that will give me enough time to study AND go shopping tomorrow.
Then i only have 2 more after that!! yay!!
When's your next exam?

I have three left.... nothing til a week tomorrow, History. Then only Biology and German, and no more exams for a year!
What Highers are you taking?

My next two after Music are Graphic and Physics. The Best are always kept till last....
Next year i'm doing English H, Maths H, Graphic Comm. H, Physics H and Art and Design H ... EEK! it will be so scary!!!
What's your Higher choices?

I'm doing English H, Maths H, Music H, French H and German H
I will need to do lots of revision next year

I won't even be at school! I'll be a wee fresher, could be quite scary but potentially exciting too!

The Future does not look bright for me then.. Revision is like a swear word in my opinion - and i don't even know how to revise!! EEK!!!!!!!!!!!

I've never understood that in exam scripts. I'm not an English student, but when is prose not continuous?

The school will burn down . (I'm currently at college, but if I was still there....and thank god i'm not.....I would hope the school would run in to trouble. The roof once blew off though).

I'll be going into 3rd year... scary! Junior Cert!
All us poor 2nd years have heard all year is "this will come up in your junior cert" or "you do most of your work for junior cert in 2nd year"
and next year it will be upon us!!!

Our school lost it's roof too a few months ago.

My school are planning to rebuild the practical block and the DT block in the next couple of years. Don't see the point really, as the buildings look in good condition as they are...

Car Expert

I think they mean write an essay, not bullet points or notes.

I have 1 hour of General Studies a week and most of the lessons are rather random - the last lesson, my teacher was doing imitations of Betty Boothroyd!

I'll be doing A2s next year but I'm not sure whether to do 3 or 4 subjects. I'd also quite like to do AS English Lit. Also, I'll be applying to universities.

Start off with 4, and do them for a term, and you can drop one if you don't like it. I was going to do that, but didn't in the end.

A2s next year!

Hopefully, I'd be able to drive by then...? (Someone in our year already knows how to drive!) You also know all your university offers by then I think? In some respects, because you have all your university offers by then, I see A2s being somewhat more of a relief. I kind of see ###### (oops, AS's) as rather more crucial in that respect, because in some ways, it is easier to get the grades you want than the offers you want!

General Studies? We only had 3 lessons of it, 2 of which I missed, because I'm mentoring a GCSE Science student. It could be because I'm in AS though. Not all too worried about it really, and am rather indifferent about taking the test - I think the only reason people get annoyed about it is because they fret over what they will get... my attitude is that I'm just going to go in there, write an essay, walk out, and then whatever I get in it will be a bonus (a rather negligible bonus, perhaps, but still a bonus, providing I get a B or more). Actually, I'm just relying on my GCSE blagging skills - hopefully I haven't lost it after a year of doing pure Sciences! But, as you can see, I tend to write in vast amounts of prose as it is... so that shouldn't be too hard!

I'm keeping my 4 subjects for definite next year - the way I see it, is if you drop a subject, then you've just lost your advantage over other students (and to some extents, you've lost it just for extra free periods that you probably won't use unless you're course is that intensive).



~Wobby~

I go into fourth year! It seems quite scary because it hardly seems any time since it was my first day at high school!

Whoops - in response to Wobby's post

Uni wise - Oxbridge/med/vet courses you apply by October, otherwise you have until January. Offers can come through any time from September to May I think!

Pffff, A2 is no WAY a relief! It's scary. You HAVE to get certain grades. And that is one scary feeling.

You don't necessarily have an advantage with 4 A Levels..

So, by this time next year, you know where you have the potential to go...

As for the point of 4 A Levels, it all depends on what your 4th A Level is. For example, if I were to want to do Chemistry, a prospectus would say that the required subject is obviously Chemistry, an advised subject is Maths, and a helpful subject would be Physics/Further Maths.

If I have Chemistry, Maths, Physics and Further Maths, then they are less likely to make demands on which ones require certain grades (i.e. let's say I replaced Further Maths with 'Media' for example, then they would expect such and such a grade from Chemistry and Maths, and would specify the last grade requirement must come from Physics and not from Media, like they did for my brother who had Psychology). Therefore, there is less pressure in the sense that you only have to get the required grade between two subjects rather than one.

Obviously, if the reservation of the 4th subject ultimately led to 4U's rather than 3A's, there would be a notable disadvantage, but I don't think we could expect that happening too often.

I'm not saying that it's suddenly a breeze as you get to A2 - I'm just saying that it would be a relief for me knowing that I have at least an offer that I want, and my goal is to achieve those grades, rather than worrying about getting the right offer and the grades. But, personally, weighing them out, I am more insecure about getting the offer I want than getting the grades I want...

~Wobby~

Next year, after 13 years at school and 6 studying at university, will be the first academic year since 1987-88 that I haven't been a student of any form . Should give me a chance to catch up with the LRSM performance and LTCL accompaniment on the to-do list, though .