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Year 11

Welcome to the Year 11 Support Page

Here you will find all the useful information you might need for the months leading up to your final exams.

This page will be updated as new information is available so please check regularly.

Revision

Mapping out the task

It is important to have an idea of the task in front of you. Write down the subjects you are entered for. For each one write down the papers you have to take and the themes, topics or style of each paper. Each subject will normally break down into anywhere between 5 and 10 topics write those down too. If you don’t know these things find them out ASAP. Perhaps use the links at the bottom of the page to take you to the exam spec if you don’t have it anywhere else, but knowledge organisers and revision guides can be useful for this too. Then you just need to look at this for a moment. There is a lot to know. You need to get organized and get started.

What to do if you just can’t get started

Firstly, you need to get motivated. No one wants to revise. We would all rather go out – to a friends, shopping, to the beach – or just relax, watch TV, play a game, or just be on our phones! However, we all know that anything worth achieving can involve some effort. And sometimes the more effort you put in, the prouder you will be of yourself at the end, and almost certainly the better the outcome will be.

You need to realise that the exam results you get at 16 make a big difference to what you get to do next and stay with you for a long time. They are often the first thing an employer looks at. Do you want other people to think you are not as good as you really are? If you haven’t studied hard up to now don’t worry, with effort you will catch up. You are going to prove you can do it, and believe me the effort is worth it.

For many of you, if you are going to achieve the grades you need to take the next step in your education you need to try hard over the coming months. You need to revise. On any journey, however large it is essential to take the first step. If you know you haven’t been doing enough then as you are reading this, set yourself some easy achievable targets for today, for tomorrow and for the coming week. Can you do more hours of revision this week than last? And then more the week after that? Probably, you can, so do it.

Keeping going

Set yourself some targets. Decide on what your rewards should be. Involve your parents or carers so they can help reward you when you achieved a certain amount of revision. Keep a record of how much you did as well as how much you are going to do. It can be very motivating to see how much you have already done, rather than focus on how much you still have to do.

If you’ve written some revision notes or made some revision cards bring them in, show your teachers. If you know you’ve learnt something and you feel proud about it or got a family member to test you on something and you did well, tell your teacher about it. They will want to know!

Work with a friend. Some subjects (maths and languages spring to mind) can be tough to study alone, but much more effective to work with a partner. Working with someone else can help break up the days and add a bit of variety.

Work on as well as off the computer. The internet is a wondrous thing – but it can eat away at your time. Use technology to help you, to find things out or for using the various learning apps we have, but pen and paper, highlighters and colours is just as important for retaining information. You can’t take the internet into the exam remember!

Prioritising

It is human nature to spend more time on the things we like and less time on the things we don’t. however, with revision you have to battle against this. It is usually better to spend more time on the things you know are a weakness rather than a strength. It is also usually better not to spend an equal amount of time on each chapter of a revision guide, but to work out which chapters are strengths and which are weaknesses and then focus on the things where you need more help.

Key dates

Obviously it is important to be on top of things. You should definitely write a revision plan and you should have your official exam dates posted up at home where everyone can see them so that people can be extra nice to you at the right time! And so that you don’t forget!

Last full day in school

Every year we get asked about study leave. There is no longer “Study Leave” in the traditional sense that parents would have had when they were at school. We expect our students to be in school full time until dates for 2023/ 2024 date to be confirmed. Of course in subjects such as Art which finish quite early in the exam window these lessons then convert to supervised study sessions with resources to support success in English, maths and science.

After 2023/ 2024 date to be confirmed students must of course attend all exams and any timetabled lesson in which the final exam is still to come. If students wish to be in school for periods between these lessons and exams or because they are waiting for a bus or just prefer to be in school to study this is fine but they must attend the timetabled sessions at that time to satisfy our safeguarding and fire evacuation responsibilities.

We will be holding a celebration assembly on 2023/2024 date to be confirmed and of course we would dearly like all Year 11 students to be at that – more details to come!

Year 11 Prom

The date of your Prom 2023/2024 is Friday 28th June at The Stones Hotel, Highpost, Salisbury, SP4 6AT

Details can be found here

Exam Timetables

Term Dates