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Sixth Form Study Skills

Sixth Form Study Skills

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Confidence and Wellbeing

Support your students with their wellbeing during their A-Levels.

A-Levels can feel like a big step up for a lot of students, as workload increases and maintaining healthy study habits becomes more important. We worked with staff from Newcastle University’s Student Health and Wellbeing service, including qualified counsellors, to create resources to support students in adapting to their A-Levels and managing their wellbeing while studying.

Whether you’re a teacher, librarian or pastoral staff, these resources can be used to promote positive habits and support students in your school or college.

Using our resources

Ideas and inspiration for how you might use our resources to support your students in managing their confidence and wellbeing.

Getting started

New beginnings is a video featuring three current Newcastle University students, outlining some of the key changes and feelings students might experience when starting their A-Levels, highlighting the positives as well as addressing some of the worries they may have. This may be useful to show to a whole new cohort in an assembly or during form time.

Our Study spaces video provides students with an overview of different types of study spaces and a model for setting up their own study space at home. It includes examples of spaces in the local area, but can be applicable anywhere.

Our Blog has been written by current Newcastle University students, who reflect on what they experienced during their A-Levels and provide advice for new students, sharing an insight into University life too.

Adapting to a new workload

Time management

Our Study timetable allows students to customise their own study timetable each week based on their A-Level subjects, and features built-in prompts reminding them to take a break between study sessions.

Our Time management strategies resource provides effective time management strategies for students to choose from.

Our Work-life balance scale is a tool that supports students in optimising their work-life balance.

Our Procrastination quiz provides students with strategies to help them avoid procrastination.


Planning

Our Essay planner allows students to input their deadline for a piece of written work and provides approximate guidelines on how long to spend on each stage of their planning, research and writing.

The stages of writing an essay is an interactive that invites students to reorder the stages of writing an essay and consider how long they should approximately spend on each.


Feeling positive

Our advice posters can be found at the top of our Healthy study habits page, and can be downloaded and printed to display in classrooms and corridors in your school or college. Each poster covers a common feeling identified by students, from overwhelm and burnout to lack of motivation and isolation, providing guidance and resources to help students combat that feeling. Click on each poster in the carousel to open them as a PDF.

Making decisions

Our decision trees support students with tackling the first-time experiences they may encounter when they start their A-Levels, including:

Each decision tree guides students with resources and practical tips for overcoming the hurdles they might be faced with.

Confidence and resilience

Confidence in the classroom

Our Contributing to classroom discussions interactive guides students through managing their nerves when speaking up in class, providing practical advice for framing ideas, speaking and responding, and working collaboratively.

Preparing for classroom discussions is a video that outlines strategies to combat some of the most common worries students have about speaking up and sharing ideas in front of their peers. This may be useful to share with a new class at the start of their A-Levels to setup a positive conversation culture in your classroom.

Handling feedback

Receiving feedback on your work is an interactive resource that shares advice on how to process receiving feedback on homework, coursework and practise questions, including managing negative emotions. The accompanying video encourages students to actively use their feedback using real examples of how current University students use feedback to improve their work, reminding students not to compare their feedback to others’ and reassuring them that critical feedback can be positive.

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