or

„The things I wish I had known at the

start of my 6th form life‟
 Choosing education & the time of ashes

 Being here is not enough – the ability to set

goals and take action separates people

 Success of any kind results from habitual

behaviour.
 Oxygen
 Diet
 Water
 Exercise
 Sleep
 Addictions
 A PASSION FOR WHAT YOU DO.
 Energy follows motivation

 „Live as is if you are going to die

tomorrow but plan as if you are
going to live forever‟ Hagakure
 W.I.I.F.M – why are you here?

 The Pain / Pleasure principle

 Begin with the end in mind.

Have a clear plan and write it
down –
then revisit it regularly over
the next 2 years.
 Self doubts become
self-fulfilling
prophecies

 “Today is the first day

of the rest of your life”.
 So dare to dream big – then take
massive action.
 There are no failures –
only feedback

 Be willing to step into

your „stretch zone‟
physically, socially
and intellectually.
 „If you‟re not living life on the
edge, you‟re taking up too much
space!‟
 Fear will never go away as long
as we are growing

 The only way to overcome fear

is to face it.
 It helps to know you are not
alone!

 Pushing through fear is

better than living IN FEAR

 Fear transforms into

energy.
 With yourself (purpose, goals, values)
 With others –
 Peers
 Younger members of the school
 Staff.
 Survival of the BEST FIT
 Build a strong support network
 Avoid exclusivity to maintain stability!
 Be kind.
 Genius is 99%
PERSPIRATION and only 1%
inspiration

 There is nothing you can‟t

achieve if you want it badly
enough.
 High expectations by
parents, staff and yourself
 Limited free time
 Crisis management
 Low energy
 Social problems
 Academic pressure
 Identity flux.
 Early recognition
 Realistic expectations
 Balance between work & play
 Positive influences
 Good energy management
 Good support network.
 #1 Manage your energy levels
 #2 Know your purpose and goals
 #3 Create strong self belief
 #4 Abandon your comfort zone
 #5 Manage your fear
 #6 Communicate!
 #7 Have a good support network
 #8 Be tenacious
 #9 Develop a personal stress busting system.
 Learn how to learn so that you can work smarter
– not harder!

 Smart students -

Know their brain and how it works

Understand how they learn
Master the 4 key skills
Learn how to play the examination game.
 We have learnt more
about the brain in the last
2 decades than we did in
the previous 2, 000 years
 You actually have 3 brains
stacked on top of one
another!

 They operate in a hierarchy

 Collectively they weigh 3% of

your mass but they consume
20% of your energy supply!
 Your brain is divided into two hemispheres
 Modern education has a left
hemispheric bias
 But breakthroughs and discoveries
often require right hemispheric
processes

Eureka
Benzene
Sewing machine
Velcro
Einstein‟s thought experiments
 The 2 minute paperclip game

To pick locks
Clean your nails
Poke people with it
Exercise track for fleas
Trail marker on leaves
Fishhook
Sextoy
 We learn best when we
engage the whole of our
brain, combining the
organizational strength of
„Gates‟ with the dynamic
creativity of „Williams‟

 Study skills strategies are

designed to help you do this
 Time Management

 Reading

 Note taking

 Memory work.
 £1440 a day for life – what would you do with it?
 What are your unique priorities?
 Are you just busy or productive?
 Week planner – think in ink
 ST pain for LT gain
 Don‟t be an ostrich.
 The average adult in the UK
reads 300-450 wpm

 With 1 hour‟s tuition and 10

hours practice you can
expect to increase your
reading speed to 3000 wpm

 We are biologically capable

of reading 200,000 wpm!
 It‟s hard to write and think at the
same time!
 Learn to take effective notes
 Translate into your own words
 Set up a distillation cycle
Converting course notes into visually
memorable revision aids is one way of
working smart, not hard
 Equations
 Dates
 Names
 Statistics
 Quotations
 Facts.
 Stories
 Humour
 Exaggeration
 Motion
 Relationship
 Bizarre
 Colourful
 Perceived personal
value
 The Normans
 The Plantagenets
 The House of Lancaster
 The House of York
 The Tudors
 The Stuarts
 The House of Hanover
 The House of Windsor
 The major shift from GCSE to A level is an
increased emphasis on complex argument and
synthesis of knowledge

 In other words you have to know what you‟re

talking about and have an opinion – there are no
shortcuts!

 It‟s not just what you know but what you can do
with that knowledge that counts– make
connections.
If you take one thing from my talk, please
make it this:

“You will grow according to the

information you are exposed to,
choose to accept and act upon.

Make your choices mindfully, and in

the coming weeks, remember...”
Things could be a lot worse!