On the 24th of October (a Wednesday afternoon), I had my first Three Way Conferences of the year.
All in all, it wasn’t very surprising. A lot of the things I was told were already in my mind. For example, many subjects; namely Geography, Biology, and Maths; discussed how I just needed to get used to the types of responses expected in GCSE tests and essays. This honestly makes me a tad bitter. It makes me fear that however fantastically I may end up doing in Grade 10, some exam will make me look bad. However, they stressed how my effort and interest will get me to the top in the end, and that combined with learning from previous tests will get those pesky numbers higher. I now have a much more solid idea of what I need to do (“write to an idiot, not your teacher.”).
As for more specific suggestions, I got those from my Systems and Chinese teachers. For Chinese, I was reminded of how, despite my good writing ability, my speaking is quite dismal. So my teacher had a suggestion. She believed that the best way for me to improve was to have one-on-one talks in Chinese, just to practise fluency and vocabulary. I agree that this could work, and it would also be a form of pressure to motivate me to practise words. Mr Williams, my Systems teacher, suggested I improve my skills in Fusion 360 (software to create online 3d models of projects). Aside from this, he was quite excited about my theoretical knowledge and curiosity but agreed with me in needing more practical skill and applying it. A good example of this is the recent stirring rod tower project. Although I had good knowledge of forces and structure, I did not apply them very well, making one of the worst towers in the class (measured by load it could take per unit of weight). From this, I realised that I should do more thinking around the “core” of the problem, as in the many general ways in which it could be solved.
English was arguably the least helpful conference. All I got was some ego-bursting praise. Specifically, I was told by my teacher that I was among the best GCSE students she’s taught so far and that I should encourage more of my writing ability.
At the end of the day, I am quite pleased with my academic progress so far. Even just in this half-term, I have grown a remarkable amount, and am probably nearing the end of this awkward adjustment period. How exciting it is, to go into full-on High School.