1. Set out a study plan early and stick to it. Organise all the things, you want to do (e.g. watch that football match) and fix your timetable around theses treats, it will help you focus on revising and not get distracted. For example, if I do three hours of revision in the morning then I can still go shopping later! This can be a massive help when trying to find the motivation to get through the next three hours of algebra…

The 21 August is looming and for a lot of you that will mean your GCSE results day. What will this day mean for you and what actions will you take on that day?

What do Tom Cruise, Orlando Bloom and Richard Branson all have in common?

They all suffer from dyslexia.

What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that affects around ten per cent of the population, some sufferers having more severe forms than others.

Interview with Sophie, who is currently studying on the ONIT course at 4rce training, Ipswich. This is a year long course designed to help young people who are NEET or who are leaving college to participate, motivate themselves, improve personal skills and employability skills  while also improving their qualifications. The aim is that afterwards they will either return to college or enter work, apprenticeships or further training afterwards.

It may be that you didn’t get on with people at your previous school, got expelled, failed a year or moved away, but if you have now decided to go back to school or college, or are moving schools, then chances are you are going to have to make new friends.

School/college is about more than just the things you learn and the qualifications you gain, it is also about the friendships you make.

This blog post should give you the confidence to make new friends and start the year as you mean to go on.

I left school with one qualification in art. The teachers were surprised I didn’t do better. The one thing I enjoyed was the printing club run by the art teacher who encouraged me. To see an image reproduced was magic to me and it gave me the idea to get into the printing industry when I left school.

There are many forms of printing: lithography, letterpress, silkscreen, gravure, and lots of different trades within. At the time I didn’t know what the differences were or how big the printing industry was but it would become something that attracted me to the industry and would encourage me to make a dream a reality.

The study programme is for 16-19 year olds. It aims to provide useful qualifications while also preparing participants for the world of work through work experience placements. This means that by enrolling on the study programme you can gain real experience as you learn.

Currently the British education system is made up of exams and coursework. Coursework allows you to work on something over a period of time, making changes in consultation with your teacher. You have time to plan, write, review and execute an argument which can help you get a good overall mark. You might think this is useless and pointless and doing coursework makes no difference to your life, you can’t be bothered, why should you care?

Making a plan of action while you are learning can really help you to stay focused and on target. Revising everything you have done all year may seem like an impossible task, but if you divide your revision into topic headings, and then subtopics within those, then you will find everything else much easier. You can then place file dividers to separate your revision into manageable chunks, and you know which topic is lacking notes and therefore requires more reading/work.

Many people don’t like school and find studying difficult. This may be because you don’t enjoy your lessons, or it could be that you don’t think you are very good at what you are studying.

People learn in different ways, and traditional teaching methods have often helped some people to learn while leaving those who learn differently to struggle with their work.