Watch out world, I could end up teaching your children! (well potentially.)

I finally got my results from college, which to be honest took much longer than it should have and now I have DDM  in BTEC creative media level 3 which is equivalent to getting ABB in A level and is worth 320 UCAS points.

While I don't really want to get into explaining the British education system but I'm going to because it doesn't make sense if you aren't familiar with it.

In England at least by the time you get to 16 you have the option to leave school or stay on for two more years, in those two years (or maybe more if you choose college) you can either do A levels or A level equivalent courses at either college or school and those qualifications can get you into university, you don't really need any qualifications at all to be quite frank but the jobs that are on offer to you are low paid so the more qualifications you have the better off you're meant to be.

People who do A level argue that BTEC is easier than A Levels because A level involves an exam at the end of the 2 years to get their results and BTEC is graded by the coursework that gets done through out the 2 years and to be honest if I had done A Levels I probably wouldn't have done as well but I wouldn't say it's because BTEC is easier, I think I did better because in BTEC you hand in your coursework unit by unit and your tutor can tell you what you're missing so you can boost your grades when in A Level all you can do is remember as much as you can and regurgitate it into your exam paper and hope for the best so in that sense BTEC is easier but quite a few people didn't do too well or failed because they were lazy and didn't put the work in over the two year period where in A Level you can afford to slack off a bit more as long as you remember most of it and revise nearer the end, really just go for the option you feel suits you. 

At the moment the economic climate is pretty unstable so even if you do have a university degree of some sort it doesn't mean you will get the job so the best bet is getting as many qualifications,skills and experience on your CV and hope for the best.

Back to how I could end up being a potential teacher.

At school I was seen as notoriously stupid, which I think was unfair looking back.

I was always put in the bottom group in lessons at primary school (you know what I mean) in maths and English I was always put in the group where the work was easiest and we weren't that thick we knew we were sitting at the under achieving table and so did the rest of the class and nobody expected much of us and we were teased a bit.

I just really struggled writing, it wasn't really the words themselves that I struggled with it was just writing them, my hand writing was awful and writing just felt uncomfortable and it took me ages to find a comfortable way of writing, the weirdest part is that I was in the "top" group in reading and science, thank god they had reading groups or I would have felt pretty stupid and probably would've gave up on English as a subject but I think this just proves that I wasn't really stupid, I just had an issue with pens.

Any way throughout primary and secondary school I felt as though everyone thought I was stupid, I don't know maybe it's just me maybe no one really looked down on me but it felt that way, I remember when I was 10-11 we had some exams and they were giving the bright kids extra lessons to help boost their grades up and I got into the science group which was cool but all the other kids were the kinds of kids who were good at everything and I remember them awkwardly shooing me away when the moved on to maths and English and I remember it really got me down.

I was pretty good at science and I was in top set science in secondary school and even then someone accused of cheating, I think they genuinely believed that I had some how cheated my way into top set or something but what actually happened was I was looking for the date and the teacher hadn't put it on the board and I knew this girl would know the date and instead of asking her like a normal person I just looked at her book, she was quite horrible about it for a while until the seating arrangement was changed but honestly how could I have cheated off her when all she had written was the date, seriously.

This all changed when I got to college however, people didn't think I was stupid in college, I guess it's because of  these reasons:

1. my hand writing had slightly improved at 15-16 (when I say improved I mean just about readable.)
2. most of our work was on the computer so my hand writing didn't matter and computers have spell check so I could fix my mistakes.
3.these people first met me when I was 16 and saw me for who I was at that time and didn't know me as the girl who used to struggled in lessons.

I really do think that the reason I struggled so much was down to my handwriting not my intelligence I just wished I had seen that when I was younger.

Any way with my college grades I can get into an English undergraduate course at Bournemouth university if I really wanted to but I have actually have met the entry requirements for the course , I'm not sure that I would take the English course because I would rather do a script writing course if I really had to but if I did the English course I could go on to do post graduate and so on and become an English teacher.

How funny would that be if I did become an English teacher, I can picture the look of shock on my old class mates if I  end up teaching their children
For the sake of proving everyone wrong and rubbing it in their faces it would be so worth it but long story short I don't want to be a teacher because I still really want to work in television but it's still an interesting idea.

Any way the moral of the story is that if you feel stupid and you are under achieving at it's probably got nothing to do with your intelligence and you shouldn't just write your self off like that, you shouldn't put others down either because it's not fair, everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses you shouldn't make people feel about themselves.


On a side note I don't think it's right for teachers to label a child by putting them on a certain table, I think it makes the children on the low intelligence table feel self conscious and they stop trying, I would like to hear what other people think in the comments, did they feel labelled at school? what was your school/college experience like? It would be interesting to know.

How we measure thing's in England.

In England we measure things weirdly and by weirdly I mean we use our units of weight, height, distance, water volume ect inconsistently, for example we weigh people differently to how we weigh ingredients for meals and I have no idea why we do this, I guess some things just stuck when we switched to metric, I don't know. 

I tried explaining this concept to an american who asked me how much I weighed in kilograms because he thought that we just use the metric system and I explained that we weighed people in stones, pounds and ounces and I just confused him even more and had to explain stones and it occurred to me that we (the English) over complicate how we measure things and I thought "Well if that guy was confused and didn't know what a stone in weight was there are probably plenty of other people who are just as confused."

So if you're either curious or confused I am going to attempt to explain.

 

First I will explain liquid volume, we measure different liquids differently.

We measure alcoholics drinks like beer and milk in pints and other liquids like water, bottled drinks and petrol/diesel (gas for vehicles) in litres and millilitres, a litre is the same as 1.75975 pints.

Height is sometimes measure in both metric and imperial , something like a building could be measured in both feet or metres whilst a person is usually measured in feet and inches,the lengths of objects and rooms are measured in metres and centimetres.

a foot is 30.48 centimetres and a metre is worth 100 centimetres.

 Distance like height is measured in both metric and imperial, long distances (like the distance between two cities or towns) are measured in both kilometres and miles whilst shorter distances (like something within sight) can be measured in metres, yards and feet.

1 mile is the same as 1.6 kilometres and a metre is 1.09 yards.

Weight is probably the most confusing of all, people are weighed in imperial and we use stones,pounds and ounces while the US use pounds.

A stone is worth 14 pounds so a woman of 8 stone would weigh 112 pounds for example.

We use milligrams, grams and kilograms for food (if you were using kilograms it would be meal for a large group meal like school dinner)

A gram is made up of 1000 milligrams and 1000 grams make up a kilogram. 

And we measure big things like cars in Kilograms or tons depending on how heavy it is , so if there was a week bridge there would be a sign to let you know how many tons or kilograms the bridge can take, an English ton is heavier than an american ton however. 

An English ton (or a long ton) is the same as 1016.05 kilograms so tons are used for larger things like buses and planes.

A uk ton weighs 2240 pounds where as an american (short ton) is more like 2000 pounds.

And that is about that really, if you are wondering about any other unit of measurement you can always ask me in the comments, be warned I'm not a mathematician but I'll do me best.

My P.E experience; Reasons why I'm not cut out for sport.

I am terrible at sport, if I looked hard enough I would probably find a sport that I'm okay at and enjoy but pretty much every form of exercise and sporting activity I've tired I wasn't very good at.

I'm not the most competitive person in the world, if someone challenges me I just back down, if I lose a game I'm not bothered.
I think I've come to the conclusion that I am my biggest rival, if someone insults me and I end up crying it isn't really because of what the person said but more because I didn't stand up for myself or I felt what they said were true and I get angry at myself for being that way, which is probably why I like learning about things, writing, drawing and stuff because those are things I can improve, it's not really a competition thing.

Not being competitive pretty much makes the majority of sports really boring, so P.E lessons weren't really the highlight of my week like they were for some kids.

I was also notoriously weak and wimpy and I couldn't throw, hit or kick to save my life I wasn't even particularly fast, my limbs were so scrawny they were pretty much useless.

The kids who were good at sport really didn't understand, it's like they thought that I was being pathetic on purpose like being a noodle armed, jelly legged wimp was cool or something, if you ever ended up on their team they would give you that disappointed look.

It was like the had lost the second I was put on the team which to be honest they were probably right.

I was one of the kids that when the other kids played tag with me they would go out of their way to help me win because I could never catch anyone, the competitive people hated having me on their team, despite not really being bothered whether we won or not coupled with my unfitness I did try pretty hard to enjoy it and I didn't want to let everyone down either and I did my best in P.E but some how I would find a way to ruin the game.


Dodge-ball was the worse, I was pretty good at the dodging part I put it all down to my general avoidance of the ball so I was often the last person on my team which was the worst, because dodge ball was mixed gender I was literally up against 5 boys. alone.

 It must have been horrible for them because they known I can't throw a ball to save my life so there was no chance in hell I would hit any of them and if they hit me hard with the balls (I was pretty puny at school)  people would call them mean and to make matters worse there was a really good chance I would end up crying if I got hurt so to avoid looking like awful people who hurt the scrawny, quiet girl they would take it in turns to lightly toss dodge-balls in my direction and hope I go down quietly, it was really awkward and I think I really annoyed the everyone, those boys must have hated playing dodge ball with me.

At my school we had a weird dodge-ball rule and if you hit the backboard on the basket ball hoops at the other end of the gym you could get the rest of your team who were on the bench back in the game so when ever I was the last person left in dodge-ball everyone would be yelling at me to hit the backboard.

I couldn't even bounce the balls far enough to reach the other teams feet let alone throw it high and far enough for it to hit the basket ball hoops, they should have just let me forfeit it would have been so much easier but my the boys on my team were so competitive and refused to let me admit defeat, they even went as far as to shout words of motivation but there was no chance in hell I would ever win so after a while I would pretend to get hit and sit out when my team was wearing a little thin.

I actually liked long distance running and dancing sometimes I was never a very good dancer but it's just something that you can do for fun and isn't really competitive when you are alone and it's not something you need to be particularly good at to find fun kind of like singing, I sing and dance (badly) sometimes when I'm home alone, my neighbours must be wondering what's going on.

I was okay at long distance running, I was never first or anything but it was probably the only sporting activity I was okay at which was nice and I would often try and out run other people, I would never get much past 4th or 3rd place, there was this girl who had amazing stamina and would always come first and there would always be another person faster than me but I was proud of myself, I was a terrible person who liked over taking people, I guess it was because I was notoriously slow when it came to short distance, so people would be both surprised and upset that I had managed to over take them.

I left school 2 years ago I haven't really done any proper sport since, which is really bad and I really should do something about that.

 I would love to hear form people, to at least know that maybe, just maybe there is someone else who is as lazy as me or maybe someone knows some kind of sport I could try (you know ones that don't involve, throwing, kicking or hitting balls with thing so I don't look like I'm that bad.)

WTTROML blog's guide to surviving secondary school

This is WTTROML (Welcome to the rest of my life) blog's guide to surviving secondary school, believe it or not you can actually survive secondary school, I'm going to be honest it might not always be great but just stick with it because  honestly things get better, so if your reading this after a bad day at school don't worry because there are millions of kids going through the same thing.

Secondary school is a type of school in the uk (The uk is weird because our schools are usually split into primary and secondary school or lower, middle and high school ) secondary school is for 11-18 year old's which to be honest isn't great to mix insecure 11 year old's who are trying to work out who they are with kids who are 15 and trying to rebel and 18 year old's who are preparing to live independently but that is my school system.

I left school when I was 16 and I went to college instead but I guess seeing my little brother in his over sized blazer going into year nine (the year group for 13-14 year old's) it really made me think of school, at school I was the awkwardest thing you'd ever seen, I'd always been quiet and had a hard time making friends and it took me ages to make my first best friend and I was about 6 when I finally found her and I sort of made other friends too but my best friend was much more outgoing than me and my friends were more like her friends who had to put up with me because of her, so when I left primary school for secondary school I left my best friend behind and I was friendless again.

 Don't get me wrong I made friends pretty quickly at secondary school but I just kind of ended up with them I didn't really earn their friendship, secondary school is a confusing place and first years (year 7) seem to change instantly they start off so scared and awkward and carry around huge bags expecting lots of home work and books, I never got that much home work, any way after a month all the girls start straightening their hair and cover their freckled faces with make up, the boys start styling their hair after a celebrity and wear designer gear, everyone's bags shrink and everyone develops a attitude problem.

I think it's because people feel insecure about how they look and things when they hit puberty and because there are so many kids going through puberty and because they all feel insecure they start making others feel bad about how they look too and they make more people feel bad too and then the atmosphere becomes toxic.

I'm still not overly sure why ended up alone, I guess that because I had relied too much on my friend from primary school to lead me and I never had to make friends, at secondary school I ended up hanging around with a girl quieter than me and I think I bossed her around too much, talked about my self too much and became too dependent on her I was a terrible friend to her and she had her own problems to deal with too, another girl drove us apart, looking back it was for the best really I know I would have just kept falling out with her if I kept trying to be her friend and she needed to sort her self out and so did I, I needed to learn how to make friends properly.

I have some advice, if your struggling to fit in don't do anything or change just so people will think more of you, I never did join the band wagon of hair straightening and make up wearing, you really don't want people to think more of you because of how you look or trying to do something to try and fit into a crowd, sure I was lonely and miserable for a while but when year nine came about things were so much better, I think I needed that time alone to work myself out, I wanted to be liked for being me and I made friends not because I tried doing things to look prettier or cooler which is honestly a bad idea, I took the time to get to know people first and build a relationship and was liked because of my personality and to be frank my personality and attitude was terrible before I spent so much time alone, I think I became a nicer person in that time.

At the same time there were so many other kids having a hard time fitting in, tons of friendship groups were falling apart and I think their problem was that they had tried so hard to fit in that when the people they had befriended weren't so keen on them, this makes sense really if you act differently to please someone it isn't really you they befriended so your friendship isn't really going to last, so you should really just be yourself and you will find the people who will like you for who you are.

I felt bad making friends at first I didn't want  to be the person who tagged along anymore, the person that was there because someone liked me and everyone else had to put up with me even though they weren't really keen on me so I was reluctant to start hanging out with people again.

My biggest piece of advice is that there are so many confused, lonely and insecure people at school and they say a lot of things that they don't really think about before saying, they will say cruel things to people they don't know because they won't feel as bad saying it to someone they don't personally know, they don't think about how you feel and they won't remember it like you will and as horrible as it sounds some times you need to forget about it, or course if it's a regular thing then they are bulling you and you need to let them know how much you hate them, but if someone you have never met says something horrible to you it's probably because someone said something to them and I found that they were nicer when you get to know them and so it's a good idea to not hold a grudge and treat them politely if you are ever introduced to them. (And if they are still rude and nasty when you aren't giving them any reason to be then there is clearly something wrong with them.)


If you're wondering about what happened to those girls who I originally befriended ended, well their friendship ended on bad terms, I eventually buried the hatchet with the girl I made friends with in our first year by the time we were 15 and we're still friends today , the girl who drove us apart was expelled from our school when she was 15 but both of them had fallen out with each other by then, I don't know what happened to her after that which is sad.

I started secondary school 7 years ago and I wished that I had been more internet competent at 11 because I could have used it to learn what I know now but I don't really have many regrets truth be told I just wished I didn't burn so many bridges along the way but I'm happy now and secondary school made me the person I am, because if I didn't go I would be sitting here the same slightly selfish, clingy little girl I was when I was 11, good luck.