Back to School Advice:Revision Tips

Since I am starting year 11 this year and I have experienced a full four years of the secondary school environment I finally feel qualified enough to give you advice on how to go about these school days. Now telling you that these days will be the best of your life is not entirely true, these days will sometimes also be the worst in your life. Partly due to the fact that you are still young but mostly because it’s a plain fact that some people are mean and work is hard. That universally accepted but it’s how you get through this that will make your high school experience worthwhile.

I have gone through my share of high school up’s and down’s myself, some of which were of my own doing and some because I did not have someone that would give me the advice that I will be giving you now. Sit tight because in the next few blog posts we will discuss revision techniques, tips with bullying, stationary and books and the best makeup for school.  

Firstly In this post let’s start off with the hallowed revision tips and tricks, without some sort of revision plan set out for yourself during the school year or even a rough idea of how much you want to revise you will find secondary school very hard. If you are currently attending one you will know it is much bigger and more work focused than your previous primary school. Were before you could get away with maybe an hour a week of story reading with parents now you will come to realise that this is not the case. If you realised this early on Well Done! You are much more intelligent than me but if you did not, it’s not to worry it’s never too late.

For Years 7-8 an hour of revision of the maths, sciences and subjects like history and geography is all that is needed each week. Also be sure to ready at least 1 book every two weeks this will do wonders for your English grade. It will extend your vocabulary and creativity like you would never believe! If you are not much of a reader however just try and get into reading as much as you can, everything counts. Magazines, non- fiction books based on your hobbies and even blog posts will help you.

Years 9-11 will get a little harder, nothing to worry about but if you do not have the right mindset of wanting to achieve good grades and do well you will struggle. That’s a tip I always give, if you have the right mindset everything else will follow. Once you have the right vision there a few things you can do to make this a reality.

·         Buy revision text books

This is always a first step as when you have your revision books all brought and ready to use then it is only a matter of getting revising! For the sciences I recommend buying books set out for your specific exam board more than the other subjects because the syllabuses vary widely for each of the exam boards. Buying this for the other subjects will help also however. CGP books are very good at giving short information and notes to memorise.

·         Set yourself a revision timetable

It is very important to know when you are studying and when you are not so that you can have a healthy work and play balance in your life. This also comes in useful when an exam is looming so you are completely sure you are using your time effectively to insure the top grades. A revision timetable may seem stressful to make but it will save you a lot of stress later on. Here is a link to my personal favourite revision timetable creator - http://getrevising.co.uk/planner/week/2015-08-17

·         Things to help you revise

A few things that actually help me revise are highlighters, I use these to brighten up important information and help them stick in my mind long after I put down the book. These are also really helpful to take to school, you will never get bored when your text books are brightly fluorescent. Same with coloured pens and felts, use them generously and you will be repaid with good grades and very pretty books. Another thing that I sometimes use to help me revise for subjects like Business and Spanish,when there is a lot of vocab to memorise, is flash cards. They are so easy to pop in your bag and go through in car journeys and free periods that they are a no brainer. Every person should own an emergency wad of flash cards, you never know when the next class vocab test will creep up on you.

All this information may feel overwhelming but believe me after a month in a secondary school it will feel more like home.

Love lule xx

 

 

The Summer Holiday

The Summer

This summer has been a learning curve for me as after only one week into the holidays I decided to try some new things. My family and I were not going on a holiday this summer, our holiday was already booked for the October half term so after a long think I realised I wanted to do something beneficial with my time this year. Now don’t get me wrong I still wanted to lounge about on the sofa and watch re-runs of Pretty little liars and The vampire diaries because believe me that is always inevitable but I also wanted to be a little productive.

Volunteering

And that’s when the idea struck me, what is the best thing to do during the holidays that would help me and also help others, well volunteering of course. I knew that there were some places going in my local library to become a summer reading Challenge volunteer which consists of helping the young children that are partaking in the summer reading challenge with quizzes, activities and arts and crafts. As someone that used to do the summer reading challenge for nearly every year since I was 5 up to 10 then I know how important it is to make these children have the best time possible. This challenge encourages reading and writing in the young children as they have to finish six books and then write reviews for each. By the end of the summer and are also rewarded for all the work by stickers and activities. I know first-hand how important these kinds of programmes are to young children as I believe this is where my love of reading and writing first stems from.

Also as part of the volunteering that I took part in I have also become a much more confident person, I speak to the parents and workers in the library comfortably which at first I could not do because I always thought that I was in the way when the adults were organising the events. After getting past that however I really started to enjoy my time at the library and whilst I could have been staying a home and being busy doing nothing I knew I was doing the important job of insuring these young children see reading and writing as a hobby rather than a chore.

Lots of love Lule x

March Book Favourites

This month has been a really busy month for me, I have had what feels to be about a million exams and my dreaded work experience placement finally came about. I have not had a single moment to sit down and read a good book for ages and it has really been frustrating me. Honestly I’m having some bookworm withdrawal symptoms.

My work experience took place at a primary school and I was a teaching assistant for the week. I picked this placement because I’d always enjoyed primary school and thought it would be good to go back and see what has changed. The children were all incredibly cute and they all seemed to enjoy reading. At secondary school the pupils treat reading more as a chore and not a hobby so I really liked how the children appreciated the books in their library. This spurred me on to donate some of my older books to the school, when I went home I looked in the attic were all my old children books were and I saw hundreds of unused books just lying there. I was shocked because I guess I had underestimated how many books I had actually read during my childhood and a vast amount of these books were actually still in good condition. So that is when I decided I would definitely have to give some away. Looking through the immense pile of books was oddly nostalgic, for every book I picked up I could remember how I felt reading the book and where I was when I read them. Flicking through some of my most precious books like 'Hetty Feather' by Jacqueline Wilson even evoked an emotional response. I gave away most of my children books but there were still a few Young Adult books up there that I wanted to keep so I brought them downstairs and put them on my desk in my bedroom. I left them there for a while until last week I decided I had enough time to go though and read them again.

There were two books I had read last year but put in the attic to get them out of the way so I could use the desk space to store my school book. These books were fairly new and I had only read them once but I could still remember the storylines quite vividly so it didn’t take me long to go through them. again. 

The first book was Rainbow Rowell’s 'Fangirl'. It is an amazing book which I spent most of my summer holiday last year raving about. It is a book is about a young girl, Cath, who is going off to university with her bubbly and adventurous twin. Her and her twin are complete polar opposites, while her twin like’s partying and being the centre of attention she likes to stay at home and write stories. Unlike her twin Cath finds it difficult to fit in and spends a lot of her time in her room writing her hit stories that get thousands of views each day. That is until she meets a boy who will hopefully open her heart to the new experiences and life and university have to offer. It is an awesome, fast paced novel and some people may be put off by its size (it is definitely worth it) but I would recommend it to even the most cautious of reader. It will absorb you into its storyline and if you haven’t read this book I would recommend it with a sparkling 5 stars.

 

The other book was 'Don’t even think about it' by Sarah Mlynowski. It is a gripping novel through the point of view of a whole class (yes you heard me a WHOLE class) which after taking a jab gain some super powers that cause them to hear the thoughts of people around them.It is so different from any other book I have ever read in my whole life and that is what makes it so great. Everybody has imagined what it would feel like to read their parents minds or their crushes and this book is about that exactly. It is a funny, laugh-out-loud kind of novel and some parts are even a little emotional. Personally I think this book I even better than 'Fangirl' but that is just my opinion.

 

Read them both and comment which one you think is best. Enjoy!

Lots of Love Lule x

 

 

Teenager and Youtubers

As anyone who has experienced teenage hood knows being part of a crowd is hardwired in our DNA. We like to feel as if we belong to something and it gives us confidence. Navigating through the ups and downs of teenage life, is enough without adding lonely and bored to the list also. This is why we like to hang out, like to go to parties and like to stamp our imprint onto social media through the means of “selfies”. When we are not measuring our self-worth through the amount of likes we get or the cliques we are in, we are incredibly grouchy. Nobody wants to be alone in a room with a grouch teenager, believe me. So when another form of cool took the teenage social scene by storm it was no surprise we were all over it like a rash.

 YouTube. Now YouTube has been around since 2005, it even hit its 10 year anniversary just last week but I’m not talking about YouTube in general I’m talking about Youtubers. The people that make a living through posting videos of themselves talking about life, love, happiness, self-esteem and all round fun stuff. They have millions of subscribers, are our generation’s role models and may I add are blooming rich. Forget Justin Bieber and One Direction, Youtubers are the new IT people. I don’t have a single friend who doesn’t religiously wait for their uploads every week, boys and girls alike. We argue about which one is our favourite, (personally I am a little gripped on Tanya Burr’s daily vlogs) and it seems to bring us all together. I feel as though since we have found these brilliant people online, there is no longer space nor time for us to comment and backbite about social media profile pictures and who is going out with who because we are busy. It may not even be a good busy, people will say it is unproductive but it is without a doubt what is currently make our generation happy.

These Youtubers make us happy because we can relate to them but we can also look up to them. Most of them are aged between the 17- 25 age group with a few being a little younger or older. They talk about past experiences and like’s and dislike’s whilst showing us a glimpse into their lives through daily Vlogs. For those who do not know what daily Vlogs are, they are basically when a person walks around with a video recorder all day and video’s the highlights of their day every day for almost a month, it is as though they are conversing with the viewer. We know about their parents, their spouses and their friends and this makes us feel close to them. They freely give an insight into their lives which I amongst other teenager find remarkably impressive because they are talking so honestly to people they do not know.

Many teenagers feel it difficult to openly talk about the troubles they are having in fear of being judged by friends and sometimes family but seeing Youtubers who we feel very much connected to emotionally talking about the struggles they are having, we feel more comfortable in speaking out about our own issues. I know that adults don’t really understand the point of Youtubers but Youtubers aren’t what adults think they are, they aren’t making money out of vulnerable teens, they are helping us become more sensible, fair and wise members of society. Anyway who would you like us to look up to a happy, easy going Youtuber or a stick thin lingerie model?  Easy answer right. So go on today go and watch a YouTuber in action, my recommendations are Zoella and Tanya Burr and I am sure their positive attitude and sunny disposition will soon have you smiling from ear to ear.

 

Love Lule x

 

February Book Reviews

Recently I’ve been thinking about reading books that I wouldn’t generally go for, you know to broaden my literary horizons or something like that. It is half term and although I have mounds of homework and revision to do for school (Year 10 really is the death of your social life) I always like to make time to immerse myself in a good book at least once a week. After a quick stop at my local library I decided to pick up quite a few books. Now I wasn’t ready to invest in the books I was about to try because I wasn’t really sure I would like them so the library was a perfect choice because if I didn’t like them I would be able to return them. After a little snoop round I picked up two books. “Flip Flip” by Martyn Bedford and “Adorkable” by Sarra Manning. I am a little ashamed to say that the first thing that drew me to these two books was their covers. You know the saying – ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ I did.. Sorry!

“Flip Flip” looked so exiting. It had a photograph of an upside down boy’s head on both covers , front and back with mirrored writing on one cover and normal writing on the other. This was the only way to decipher which was the front cover and which was the back. My geeky side really took a shine to this quirky layout for this book and I spent at least 10 minutes flipping the book back and front. A little tip - one way to remember which side is the front cover is that the boy on the front cover has his eyes closed whereas on the back cover the boy has his eyes open. The whole book is kinda topsy turvey if I am honest with you guys.

Do you know that question that people often ask, ‘what would you do if you woke up in another person’s body for a day’ well this is exactly what happens to the main character in this novel. But its not only for a day, it may even be forever if he doesn’t find out the cause and how to go back to his own body. I personally really enjoyed reading this book and as a person who only reads science fiction books if they have a sonic lipstick involved (LOL) I feel converted.

 

 

 

Another book I didn’t think I would like after my library endeavours is “Adorkable”, now this book it is safe to say has no sci fi elements to it. It is completely 100% super natural free. It is the regular boy meets girl books that most girls swoon over but from my previous experiances with these type of books I was wary. I thought it may be full of the sissy, predictable boring malarkey but it wasn't  and I was pleasantly surprised. The boy and the girl in this book hate each other. They hate each other like I hate maths, maybe even more! He is the hot, sporty, brainy popular boy and she is the freaky peachy hair coloured, granny knits wearing girl with a penchant for making teachers squirm but after something happens involving the two of them they start seeing eachother in a different light and may even have a positive influence on eachother. This book is worth 5 stars and a big fat recommendation.

 

Lot of Love Lule x

 

 

 

Identity and Society's Restrictions.

 

Yesterday I was in bed when I remembered something I had been asked a few weeks back. In my English class we had been given a sheet with the question ‘who are you?’ in the middle of of it. To my surprise it was pretty difficult, some of the things that I thought made up me I didn’t want on the sheet. Why? Not because I was ashamed but because I was embarrassed. Identity is important, like gender it is the first thing people notice when they look at you. Whether you are part of a club, like a certain band or are from a specific culture, all these things add up to what forms your identity. People are often judged by other based on their identity. A boy may feel pressured to play football well because society tells him that’s what people in his gender are good at, on the other hand a girl with a natural footballing ability may feel the need to hide her passion because society is telling her to be more interested in makeup and fashion.

However I believe that no matter your gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, you should have the right to dress and do what you feel comfortable with. It is your life and you should be the only one deciding how you live it and it shouldn’t involve anybody else’s opinion. People shouldn’t hide the real them in fear of what others may say about them and neither should they conform to what society and others expect of them. Why does it matter if a girl wants to play football? Or if a boy wants to be interested in fashion. Our identity makes up just a little part of who we really are. It doesn’t define us and it definitely shouldn’t confine us. We as humans each have something unique that makes us different from any other person in the world so we should embrace this and use these little quirks to really let go and enjoy life more.

Being a teenage girl is not easy, it never has been and never will be and each generation of teenage girls have their own obsessions and passions to help them navigate the journey through this precarious fragment of their lives. Now our generation have decided to make our passions the internet, fashion and amongst other things reality TV and that’s all good, but when this starts to affect how we behave and view ourselves is when it starts to become an issue. I firmly believe the media is an all-round amazing place for us, where we interact with people, keep up to date with what’s going on in the world and what’s around us but media can sometimes turn sour. We as human beings have a control of our lives and how we choose to live it but when seeing gorgeous models with beautiful hair, perfect teeth and willowy features pushed at us regularly (even if it may just be behind a television or a computer screen) it is inevitable we feel pressured to dress and look a certain way to fit the description of how we believe we are expected to look. We conform to society’s rules for us because we see there to be no other way.

On non-uniform days at school you see girls flooding out and you may just wonder  “who told them all to dress up like that” nearly every single one of us are dressed almost identically. Skinny jeans, crop top, leather jacket and poker straight hair all because we are scared to be different. A girl who is slightly different will walk past and we will all turn round to look, as if an alien or something unseen of has been spotted. Why! Everybody should be able to dress the way they feel they are comfortable in and if that means they are not in the holy skinny jeans and crop top crew then so be it, we are all individuals and if our own clothes are not able to represent that and we are consequently hiding our true personalities then how are we as teenagers expected to grow up to be citizens that will be wise and fair in society.

What the media does not realise is that it has a massive effect on us, through the way they sell products and promote celebrities we are influenced greatly by it, even if we may not realise it. How many of us have felt a little fat after one too many custard creams and thought well Nicole Sherzinger wouldn’t have done that or prayed that by the power of Beyoncé we would put down that chocolate éclair. See it’s not only me! Without all these restrictions imagine what we could do, I would for one would shove down that éclair and then I would go to a school non-uniform day wearing my comfy Harry Potter Jumper and Gryffindor scarf, (I am a fanatical Potterhead), because who cares if I am labelled a geek as long as I am enjoying myself. Why have labels for people anyway, we should all live like we want to live because guess what you do not need to change for anybody and definitely not for media. To quote Oscar Wilde – “Be yourself everybody else is already taken.” Whoever you are, wherever you come from. I hope you will enjoy my blog because it is a place that we are all accepted. I’m new here and all your comment and views are much appreciated. Now you know a little about me stay tuned for the next post.

 

Lots of love Lule x