Exams Finished, What's Next

You've finished your GCSEs and you are moving on to next year. For some of you, that will mean A-levels. Students are often told there is a huge jump from GCSE to A-level. It is partly true, but there is more to it than just harder material.

It starts with eight weeks' holiday between your exams finishing and starting in September. Your brain disengages, you relax after a hard exam period and you are expected to swing right back into things when term starts again. This is a shock to the system. Doing nothing had become the norm and now you have to ramp things up, and quickly.

Some students stay on at sixth form in their school, but many others go to other schools or colleges. This means learning new layouts, new teachers and new people. All this unfamiliarity is not conducive to taking in new material.

Then, there is the content. If you're doing a subject which you have done at GCSE, the new material will cover similar topics to those taught at GCSE. But your teacher will expect you to have a good grasp of the GCSE content. If you struggled with something, you are already behind the curve and playing catch-up. This can only get worse. Many of the difficulties faced at A-level are not caused by an inability to understand the current topic, but a failure to understand the last. Great results are not built on shaky foundations.

It is great knowing what issues you are going to face, but it is better to have a strategy to overcome them. Keeping mentally active through the summer will go a long way to avoiding the shock of starting cold. Making use of any induction days hosted by your new institution will familiarise yourself with the layout and the teaching staff. And to give yourself the best foundations, check out our GCSE to A-level bridging workshop where we go through key topics and first term survival tips.