Back To School | What Do You Bring?

Whether you are going into Secondary school, starting your GCSEs, or even starting your A Levels at a College or Sixth Form , there are some necessities you can never shake away! This post will be telling you exactly what to bring for what occasion. I have subtitled the scenario so you can track your situation much more easily, and even highlighted the main supplies that I could NOT live without in bold, just so you can see it even more easily! Enjoy!



SECONDARY SCHOOL - Year 7


Okay so I know what all you year 7s like to do, with bags as big as yourself, how do you expect to run to class?! Haha, joking! You really don't need the kitchen sink in your bag, just bring what is really important! Now at many schools, they will give you your own exercise books, and they will let you borrow textbooks in class when relevant, but even if you are given a textbook to look after for the year, it doesn't mean to say you can bring it to EVERY lesson! Your teacher may specify when the textbook is needed and you can only bring it to that allocated lesson, you don't have to carry it around in your bag all week!



Also, your timetable should tell you when your lessons are, if it says you have Maths, History, English, PE and Music on a Wednesday, then that's what you have on a Wednesday, so don't bother bringing your Geography book just in case your classes swap, because believe me, they WONT.



Now, at this early stage in education, you needn't worry about folders or extra notebooks until around GCSE time, just so you can be extra organised so don't go out and buy those kind of supplies just yet! However, other forms of stationary now include that of a biro or an ink pen, something that you may not have been allowed to use in Primary school! Don't just rock up on your first day with a pencil because the likely hood is your teacher will tell you to bring a pen next time, and DONT WORRY! Your ARE allowed to use a pen now I promise!



Obviously come along with the basics, a couple of pencils, an eraser, sharpener, pens and a ruler, maybe basic colouring pencils for good measure and also a scientific calculator! I know many of you reading this now will be like 'a scientific calculator? When am I going to use one of those?' the answer is, NOW. This is the time your new Maths teachers can really fire some difficult equations at you, so yes, a scientific calculator might just save your life come question time ;)



SECONDARY SCHOOL - GCSE (Year 10-11)


Again, what you bring to a GCSE standard lesson is different to what you would bring to an A Level standard lesson. GCSEs is also the time where you get to choose your options, options being subjects, this is the time when you can choose between doing French or Drama, or ICT and Dance, so depending on what your options are, you will need different supplies. The obvious subjects such as Maths requires a calculator, protractors, compasses etc, that goes without saying, but for a subject such as French, you will be needing a French Dictionary, or if you need extra help, buy some CDs or DS games to help you get into it a bit more!



This is also around the time where you WILL need to get the relevant textbooks, so a GCSE History book if you want to do History, or a Spanish textbook if you want to do Spanish and so on. These textbooks really should have been bought the minute your options had been confirmed by your school, that way, you can geekishly get a head start!



Folders are also a good start, but keep the folders at home! If you have your own way of revising such as just taking notes, making posters, typing them out, mind maps, flashcards (which are good supplies in themselves), then folders are a great way to keep all of that information for that specific subject together! This way, your notes are easy to find and easy to read and therefore revise from, again, with GCSEs, its all about organisation!



Post-it notes and highlighters are also an awesome way to make information stand out, if you are going into year 10, and are unaware as to how to revise just yet, don't worry, I'm sure your school will set up mock exams (fake exams set up by the school so that you can get a feel for what the official exam will be like) that you can revise for, so you can find the best method of revision for you! For me, post-it notes and high lighters were a 'God send' when I was doing my exams. The post-it notes could be used to find pages more easily and they were also great for summarising on and sticking over a large piece of text.



Again, during GSCSEs, its all about finding what works best for you! Once you know what works well for you, stock up on them, as you already know, for me, it was post-it notes and high lighters :)



COLLEGE/SIXTH FORM - A Levels (Year 12-13)


Again, just like GCSEs, supplies such as flashcards, post-it notes, high lighters, and obviously the necessary textbooks are also essential! Again, it really does depend on what subjects you decided to take at A Level, however this is usually the time where you are expected to bring in your own notebooks, pens, pencils, rulers and everything in between! The teachers will not lend you out supplies, if you have no paper, tough, borrow some, if you haven't brought a pen, again, tough, borrow one, the teachers will NOT hand you these things out, it is now entirely up to you!



I suggest buying one big file, or two big files depending on how much content there is in each of your four subjects. If the content is huge, then section off two subjects in one big folder and the other two in another! Or, you may even be able to fit all four subjects into one big folder (something I managed to do). Instead of buying four different note books, just buy lined refill pads that peel away easily and are already hole punched, this way, you would only need to re purchase the refill pad that really should only cost a small fortune depending on how many pages there are in the pad! this is a much cheaper way of doing it than going out and buying loads and loads of different hardback note backs which can clock up rather a lot of money over time, believe me!



What I would say is, if you make it into year 13, then keep all of your year 12 work, you never know when you may find it useful, especially if the content for year 13 builds on the content of year 12! Trust me, your future self will thank you :)
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Thank you for stopping by! I hope you had a good read and I hope it helped you future Albert Einstein's out!


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