Last week we published a list of forty-five things that made up the Wimbledon High Year 7 Experience. And now, in order to fully round out the back-to-school articles, I present twenty-three experiences sixth former has.
1. Forgetting how to work after GCSEs and the Summer. A combination of a two months of staring at a textbook, struggling to understand the difference between meiosis and mitosis, to a sudden two months of allowing your brain to rot over the summer, and suddenly you fear that you and your sleep schedule will never adjust to this new way of living.
2. Taking a fourth A-Level. Because for some reason, you think that you can A) magically handle the workload or B) randomly add a science to your solely humanities line-up or vice versa, because it’s good to have ‘variety.’
3. Dropping the fourth A-Level. Because you can’t A) handle the workload and B) still can’t do maths.
4. Running out of school the moment the clock strikes twelve to go to Pret. Because that’s the grown-up version of running to the canteen to get a pain au chocolat at 10:45.
5. Envying the Y13s who have already been to Pret three times since registration. The caffeine is necessary to survive UCAS. You Y12s have it too easy.
6. Struggle over picking a sixth fit option. Are you a peace-loving yogi, or did you forget to fill out the form and end up doing circuits by accident? To be honest, I’m still trying to work out what ‘social netball’ is.
7. Crying because your form room is in Biology, despite it being the furthest possible location from the café. STEM students have a level of cardio that I, a mere humanities student, can only dream of. And art students – they’re on another level. Quite literally.
8. Crying because you have a week to pick an EPQ topic. But wait – what if I suddenly want to learn Mandarin? Or History of Art? Panic ensues.
9. Missing your alarm and walking in bleary-eyed into the sixth form café, only to have your sleep induced haze suddenly pierced by an enthusiastic ‘Hey Team!’ Before you can fully register what’s happening, Mr Griffiths has already gone, and you realise that you were in fact the only person there, leaving you with that one question: Can a team be just one person? Maybe there is an ‘I’ in team after all.
10. Develop your Sixth Form Spot. Are you a carefree café goer, more caffeine than actual person? Are you keeping up the studious façade by tucking yourself in the study room, whilst less productive people look on jealously? Or are you a common room person, fast asleep on the sofa, dreaming of the summer you left behind.
11. Start a club. The niche-r the better. Got to fill that personal statement somehow. Bonus points if you stick posters up in every bathroom round the school.
12. Learning that Ms McIlroy does in fact run the school. Lost folder? She’ll have it. Running late for your next lesson and have no idea where you need to be? She’ll know. Need a cry? She’ll have tissues.
13. Revel in the power trip of being able to push past the queue to get into the Canteen. Your younger self cheers for joy as you side-step the commotion of early lunch passes, one-off music lessons, and wondering whether they’ll still have chips left in second lunch.
14. And on that note – sit in the Hastings private Dining room. Not only is it soundproofed, but you look effortlessly self-important, a sixth form cooperate girl boss.
15. Develop your sixth form ‘style’. Yeah, it’s just jeans and a jumper, but you try and pick out an outfit every day. A lot of thought went into those jeans and jumpers.
16. Wonder if there’s a day, you’ll ever go into the sixth form gym whilst eating a muffin in the café. Yeah… still waiting on that one.
17. Talk about talking about talking about actually doing your coursework/homework/ required practical this week.
18. Try and work out how many school events you can get Mr Griffiths to be a part of by claiming Mr Turner is doing it as well. The bromance easily gets competitive.
19. Accidentally say yes to doing a panel/assembly/open evening, and the instantly panic that in your enthusiasm you realised you don’t actually know what you said yes to.
20. Go to Starbucks during GROW and promptly act like you’ve never tried coffee before because you’re that excited.
21. Lose your lanyard and then hover awkwardly outside the STEAM tower waiting for a year seven who manages to be more organised than you to let you in.
22. Be in a flash mob – I can’t quite believe that we pulled this off after thirty minutes of rehearsal time. Being a sixth former means an automatic requirement to perform at any time in anything from karaoke to impromptu dance routines.
23. Sit in the sixth form garden in shock, because you only have two years left before you’re deemed a functioning member of society. Still not quite over this one.
Good luck to all the new Year 12s!
