Kamal: Blog No.2

Time draws near for a second blog to be published. Enjoy the last one?

Last time, I discussed my college experiences with a quick overview on the transition from school to Cadbury Sixth Form College.

Everyone should be settled in by now and realised whose friends groups they fit into and so on.

We finished our first half term with mini-mocks, so we could practice our exam technique and prepare ourselves for the summer term!

There is a detailed insight on our report. Perhaps that C in English and B in Maths suggests you can “work harder/revise more” in English and so forth.

What’s happening in Cadbury?
Coming in early December is the Cadbury talent performance held in the Bob Michell theatre and tickets are only £2 each. Something to check out. I am attending and will be reviewing it next month I hope. As long as you pay attention to your emails you should be updated with what’s happening when - like an online notice board. From small notices speaking about lunch menus to trips such as Thorpe Park and Spain.

Last month the Open Day at Cadbury was a success and should have shown some students what Cadbury life is like. More details are on the Cadbury Twitter page. Try to participate in anything you get the chance to!

'Seize the moment because some opportunities don’t come twice’

I took a couple of still shots to represent College life; the first being a bus, which shows how most of us get to college, the second being the closest McDonalds to illustrate work. Perhaps looking for work now is a good idea? Some extra spending money is always nice and you could even save up for something your heart desires.

P.S. Thanks for reading the monthly blog, and if you ever need to speak to me, feel free to do so.

Isobel: Exploring Textiles

Hi everyone,

November is upon us already! Last month I wrote about starting college and dealing with the switch into a brand new environment. But now, after spending many more hours here at Cadbury, I want to tell you all about a subject that I am really enjoying at the moment; Textiles.

I want to talk about textiles in particular because, for those who are interested in the subject, knowing a little bit about the opportunities and facilities on the course may be helpful. There’s so much that I love about the course, so I hope you consider choosing it as an option if you study at Cadbury and you have a passion for creative subjects.

I didn’t take textiles at GCSE because I felt as though the course was too structured and limiting and wouldn’t enable me to develop my own creativity. The most important thing about a creative course is being able to experiment, make mistakes, follow your instincts and have freedom of expression with your work. With A-Level, that’s what you get. Yes, you’re given guidance and the teaching is excellent, but it is important to have your own individuality and personal chance to explore textiles and design.

You start the course with an empty sketchbook, every page plain and bland. But even over first few weeks and months, these pages soon become plastered in photographs, annotations, sketches, textiles samples and so much more. We were given the theme Savaged Beauty: Beauty and Decay for our work. It is now our role to interpret this how we wish, create samples inspired by our ideas and we will eventually create a final piece. The final piece can be almost anything you wish, whether it be a fashion garment, a home furnishing, an installation, a display board, and that’s just to name a few.

At the moment we are practicing a range of techniques such as batik, embroidery, screen printing and pleating. We are taught the basics of each technique then it is our role to expand on these with our own creativity, making our knowledge even greater through the use of experimenting by ourselves. My favourite technique so far has definitely been screen printing. The facilities at college are fantastic. We have access to professional silk screens, proper screen printing tables, a screen-washing room and a huge array of coloured dyes to print with. I'm incredibly happy with the results of my screen prints. Here’s a photo of my favourite sample:

I’m enjoying my textiles course so much that I have been researching undergraduate degrees at university for textiles and interior design courses. I visited a textiles talk at Birmingham City University a few weekends ago, and it was so exciting to see all of the equipment and facilities they have on offer there. The work produced by their students is outstanding and very inspiring for my own work. I learned that the creative field is incredibly competitive, with loads of people working to be the best. That’s why it’s so important to put all of your efforts into your work now so you can reach those top grades in your subjects, then you will be well on your way to being the best in whatever you want to do, whether it be creative or not.

Here's a photograph of some of the work on display at Birmingham City University:

If you need any guidance with choosing the right courses for you at Cadbury, then visit us at one of our open days, or contact a member of staff who will be happy to help.

Thank you for reading my second blog post, I’ll see you next month!

Who can believe the year is nearly over?!

Bye for now,
Isobel

Dorottya: How to manage exam stress

I think we all know the feeling when we’re a bit more stressed than usual because an assessment or an exam is coming up. Now, a little bit of stress isn't harmful; it can motivate you to work harder. However when you get to the point that it distracts you and messes up your daily routine, you need to tackle the problem.

Here are 7 ways you can reduce exam stress:

• Listen to the old classics… I mean really old classics
• Listening to classical music makes you more productive by elevating your mood and encouraging you to study more and the more you study the more you know and the more you know the less you stress
• Pop those Bubbles
• I don’t think I have to explain how satisfying it is to pop the bubbles on the bubble wrap. It just feels good and relieves stress as you concentrate on popping instead of stressing.
• Go to bed… and get some SLEEP!
• Sleeping isn't only great because we all love it, but it helps your brain to save the new knowledge into the long-term memory so that you’ll remember what you learned on the day of the exam.
• Chocolate, DARK Chocolate
• Good news chocolate lovers, eating dark chocolate which is over 70% cocoa helps your brain to fight stress hormones and has an overall relaxing effect on your body which means it reduces stress.
• Don’t let any distraction distract you 
• When you need to study, make sure you’re not wasting your precious time on social media or on funny cat videos. Concentration is essential for efficient work which is important if you don’t want to be stressing on whether you studied efficiently enough or not.

These are the few little things you can do to avoid too much stressing before exams and most of these things benefit your brain in multiple different ways.

Other than that, researchers concluded that the most common reasons for exam stress are:

• Low motivation levels
• Lack of preparation and planning
• High expectations from others

If you watch out for these things and do everything to reduce your stress levels, you should be fine for your exam!

Good luck!

Dorottya: Making a start at Cadbury College

This year, hundreds of new students joined Cadbury College. Getting into an entirely different environment can be difficult sometimes, however fitting into Cadbury isn't hard. Besides having a great variety of subjects to choose from, the college also has awesome societies that we can join and meet people who have similar interests to us. There are a lot of people with different styles, personalities and backgrounds, which makes it easy for everyone to fit in and make friends. The new students at Cadbury didn't only do well in fitting in, but they also made a great start academically. Most students are able to keep up with their work and get fairly good grades on their assessments right at the start of the year. This is probably partly because of the very supportive teachers we have at Cadbury who are ready to help us out whenever we need it. It doesn't only help our grades, but it also makes the college a friendly environment as well. We also have plenty of opportunities to express ourselves in the college outside of the lessons. There are societies such as; The Law Society, The Chess Society, The LGBT Society, The Anime Society, The Glee Club and of course, there are lot of sporting facilities as well. However, if you haven’t found a society that you would like to join, you can create your own! There are lot of great opportunities at Cadbury College and students tend to seize them, which means I can honestly say that we made a great start this year at Cadbury both academically and socially.

Jasmine: 5 Tips for success during A-levels

Hello again!

I thought I would do a quick little update on the old 'blogosphere'. I got inspired for this particular blog post whilst sitting in the LRC (The Learning Resource Centre, as it is officially known as, but it's just "The Library" to you and me!)

However! It isn't "just" a library, it's a LIBRARY. Its set up to imitate one you would find at University, just on a smaller scale. (I know this because I volunteered as a student guide during my first year). Cadbury College is making a Uni student out of us all from the get go! It's arranged with the Dewey decimal system, something that all Universities do. It may sound all complicated, but don't worry, once you get used to it, it's a doddle!

Anyway, that was a slight detour from what I was going to blog about…

Considering as I am a second year student, I like to think I have mastered the whole "knowing what to do to pass" – Maybe be true for my first year, but I'm still getting there for my second year.
So, as many of you reading this are either first year or are in your GCSE year, or even if you're younger and just wondering what A-level and college is like, here are my 5 top tips for a successful first year!

1)  Revise as you go along.
This maybe the most important one, hence why I put it at number one! You cannot, without a shadow of a doubt, revise weeks before the exam. There is no way that that is going to end well, for anyone! (Wow, sounds scary. I don't mean it to be scary, I promise!)
You probably got away with revising 2 weeks or so before your GCSE exams, and ended up with an awesome grade (I personally wouldn't like to admit that myself, mainly because my teachers would be HORRIFIED!), but for A-levels, a 2 week revision wouldn't even cover a single topic, let alone the entire first year of your course.
Revising as you go along and making the most of the end of topic assessments you'll have in college - you'll thank yourself for it. You have to do this for the top grades!
And I don't even mean hard-core revision. Even just going over the notes again after class, maybe writing them up again, looking at them and taking everything in. If you revise as you go along, there isn't going to be that sudden rush towards the end of the year, right before your exams when you're staying up late into the night, revising for the exam the next day, freaking out.

2) Do a revision timetable.
My favourite thing to do, ever! Mainly because organising and colour coordinating things is my dream job.
Making sure you have a timetable makes you revise (at least that's what happens with me, anyway). This way, you can timetable in things you like away from revision as well (You can't give up your social life, that's hard to deal with).
A general rule in college for first year students is 3 hours of revision per subject, per week. Personally for me, I wouldn't revise a subject/topic for more than 45 minutes per session. Small chunks of information are much better than huge chunks of information you're forcing into your head, because it'll just go through one ear and out of the other.
Make sure you go over things again and again. Just because you've revised topic 1, don't leave that until exam time to go over again.
My revision timetable changes every term, so then I can change it up, and not get bored of it! Boredom is what makes people not want to revise. Make it fun for yourself!
And make sure you reward yourself after your hard work! I make sure after I revise, I watch a few episodes of a show I'm currently watching, or read a book, or write a chapter of a novel I'm currently writing (wow, it's suddenly turned into a 'what does Jasmine do with her spare time?' blog).

3) Take extra notes!
College issue you with textbooks for a reason. It isn't just what you go over in class. If you do extra notes, condense them down and rearrange it into your original notes. If you're unsure, ask a teacher! They're extremely helpful.

4) Take mock exams seriously!
I know so many people who felt like mock exams didn't mean anything, but then realise towards exam season how important they truly were. It isn't just a chance for teachers to see who may need extra help with certain things, but it's also a chance to practice exam technique, which is massively important at A-level.
Especially at second year, as mock exams are an important factor for your teachers to decide your predicted grades which get put onto your UCAS application for Universities to see.

And last, but definitely not least…

5) Get a good night’s sleep before any exams.
You’re probably like “That sounds really out of place in a list of tips on how to deal with A-levels”, but it’s really true. A sleepy, tired student doesn't equal a top grade student.

WOW! This blog was EXTREMELY long. Sorry about that. But I do hope they help you with your studies here at Cadbury, or wherever you’re studying.

See ya!

Alya: First Blog Post!

Hello everyone!

I'm Alya, a 17-year old AS Cadbury student doing Biology, Chemistry, Maths and Creative Writing. 

This is my second year in Cadbury College because I did my GCSEs here.

I enjoy reading and writing and have a passion for psychology, poetry and baking.

In 2014, I came to the UK from the Netherlands so I had to do my GCSEs first. This was pretty new to me, especially in a college environment in a city as big as Birmingham.

I've prepared myself for the worst after having read about A-Level students who went to big colleges with big classes where the teachers don't care about you because there are already thirty other people in the class. Also, making friends seemed almost impossible in an environment like that.

But I was (pleasantly) surprised!

The teachers in Cadbury College were amazing and passionate about their subjects and they genuinely wanted you to succeed. Even the classes were perfectly sized and settling in was much easier than I thought. Luckily I didn't get lost and if I wasn't sure about where I was going both staff and students were ready to help.

Cadbury College is a sixth form college, and a relatively small college that really reminded me of how it was in the Netherlands where 1000 students is usually the maximum. So, being in the UK in a big city as Birmingham didn't give me much of a culture shock after all.

Even now, in my AS year, the different teachers still have the same passion for their subject whether it is Chemistry or Creative Writing.

So far my college experience has been pretty good and it had taught me that all colleges are different and that it is really helpful to attend open days or taster sessions to get a feel for the College you are choosing. Alternatively, you could always read a blog post ;-)

Alya

Taha: My College Experience and What I Have Learnt

At the start of my First Year at Cadbury Sixth Form College things were complicated; it seemed that the skills I learnt from Oldbury Academy were not enough to prepare me for the transition to college life.   As such, it took me quite a while to adapt. 

Eventually I got used to the idea of doing independent learning (revision) every week rather than a week or two before my exam (which I did during my GCSE's). During the first few months of college I found out that I have dyslexia which was a major shock to me as I did not really suspect that I had a so called "learning difficulty", but eventually things like not having the best memory or spelling started to make sense. I was granted extra time during exams to accommodate my dyslexia.  Despite being granted extra time, I decided that I had to put in more effort and work harder (a concept that took some getting used to considering my lazy habits and love of procrastination...!).

The thing that I look forward to the most about college is learning. I am a curious individual with a genuine interest in my subjects. The thing you need to take advantage of when at college is the freedom and the independence. By this I mean the freedom to choose any subject you want to study, choose what coursework topic you will focus on, choose an enrichment activity that you are interested in and choose what societies and extra-curricular activities you will get involved in.  If you are interested in what you do, you will tend to work harder and therefore should achieve the grade you want and deserve.

During college I have learnt to ask teachers questions whenever I can. It's a privilege to be able to learn and develop in small classes, so it is important to make the most of this while you can.  The importance of independent research is something I also see as important during college and will become more important during university.