As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, after being home-educated for 16 years, I’ve started studying 4 A Levels at a very prestigious and scary private school on a full academic scholarship 🥳
I’m taking English literature, politics, maths and Latin A Levels. I deliberately selected quite a wide range of options, as although I know I want to go into journalism after university, I’m not quite sure what degree I want to pursue. It’s looking increasingly likely that I’ll apply to America for higher education, where the education system encourages well-roundedness before specialisation, so I won’t be forced to narrow down my subjects for another year.
It definitely took me a while to get adjusted to this very new way of life. And it really is a new way of life – although I’m a day girl at this school, I get in at roughly 7.30am and often don’t leave until 10pm, Monday-Saturday. I have a room in my House which I share with 3 other day girls, where we each have a desk and wardrobe. Everyone else is boarding at House but we have a study. My actual home has become somewhere that I sleep, and not much else!
The school day begins with breakfast, followed by chapel at 8.30am. Chapel is 20 minutes long and consists of a sermon by the Reverend, or a speech by one of the Head Boys/Girls of school or the Prefects, finished off with some hymn singing. The first lesson of the day is at 8.50, and each lesson is 55 minutes long. The maximum amount of periods (lessons) a day is 7, and while most people only have 5 a day, I have the full 7 periods five days a week because I’m taking 4 A Levels. This is very intense, as it is a 6-day week, but when you count my 2 Saturday free periods and the 3 afternoons of sport instead of lessons, it becomes a bit more doable!
For sport this term, I’ve chosen Cross Fit and Cross Country. Both are very intense, especially Cross Country, but I did go from struggling to run for more than 5 minutes to running 5K in only 4 weeks! So I’m very proud of myself for coming on so far. Next term I’m going to be doing netball.
I’ve been very lucky at school to have classes and teachers that I really like (for the most part!). I have two teachers per subject. I particularly love my Latin teachers (who both want me to do classics at uni) and politics teachers (who both want me to do PPE 😅). One of my Latin teachers gave me an old selection of Ovid’s Metamorphoses to translate in my spare time – can’t wait!
I’ve signed up for a slightly overwhelmingly large number of societies to attend after lessons. I do debating on Mondays, politics club on Tuesdays, pizza & poetry (reading Latin poetry while eating pizza) on Wednesdays, classics society every other Thursday and law society every other Friday. In term 2, economics reading club will start up on Tuesdays and English society will replace debating. I’m probably going to need to cut back on a few of these, as I leave myself with very little time to cram my prep! But I’m enjoying them all a lot so it will be difficult to be selective about it.
On Friday afternoons, all academic scholars like myself have a special society where every 2 months or so we start a new individual project, be that or an essay or presentation or something like that. For my first project, I’m writing an essay on women’s rights, specifically comparing our privilege in America and the UK with the horrific treatment of women in Iran and Somalia.
Overall, I’ve really enjoyed my first 6 weeks at school. During half term, I went on a school trip to Naples (post on that coming soon!) and then visited my sister at Oxford University. It’s still termtime for her, so we studied together the whole time, but it was really nice to spend some time with her and see her second year accommodation too.
School has definitely been intense, and I’ve honestly never felt so perpetually exhausted in my life. However, I’ve already made some great friends and I’m enjoying all my subjects and societies. I look forward to my Saturday free periods when I can go to the library with an aesthetic little cup of coffee and feel very ‘Rory Gilmore’ with my books sprawled on the desk. Here’s to another 6 weeks before Christmas!