MAKING THE TRANSITION FROM GCSE TO A LEVEL

STUDY SKILLS and NOTE TAKING

 

Aim of the session:

This session is to support you in developing good habits of independent learning. You must take responsibility for your own learning and become more independent because:

 

1 A Level is different from GCSE – you must do more work on your own (5 hours a week per subject)

2 This will help you exceed your ALPs target

3 This will help you  prepare for university and careers (study skills are job skills)

 

Tasks:

A) Your Personal Tutor will show you a short You Tube clip packed with information (or a written extract). You need to make notes and see how much you can remember. Was your method of making notes good enough?

 

B) Your Personal Tutor will now show you different ways of note making that might be more effective:

• Linear,

• Line Diagrams

• Mind Mapping

• Tabular

• Notes on Handouts

• Recording

 

 

 

 

 

Identify at least one of these that you will use in your A Levels from this point on. Record it as a target in Proportal.

 

Homework

It is important that you are on the right course for you so next week your Personal Tutor will discuss this with you in the Right Choice Review.  In preparation for the session please complete the following questionnaire for homework and bring it with you to the session:

 

 

ILP Target Setting

You should now have done your initial diagnostic assessments in literacy and numeracy.

 

Use these with your tutor to set at least one literacy and one numeracy target for you to work on in the next few weeks in your ILP on EBS ON Track.

 

Once you have achieved these you can mark as complete and show your personal tutor.

 

 

 

 

 

Week 3 - Right Choice Review & Developing Effective Reading Skills

 

 

Aim of the session

 

The aim of this session is to undertake the Right Choice Review with your Personal tutor and develop your skill of reading for different purposes and to develop your research skills. You will also have the opportunity to review whether this is the right course for you.

 

 

Your personal tutor will complete your right choice review and update this in EBS On Track.

 

 

Other tasks to complete

 

Effective Reading – An introduction.

 

 

Where to begin

Imagine you have been given a task, such as:

• a question to answer

• an essay to write

• a project to find information for

 

How do you set about it? Where do you begin?

Ask yourself questions starting with: What? Where? Why? When? Who? How?
They don't provide specific answers, but they do help you start to plan what to do.

 

 

Task 1 - How do these words apply to writing an essay in response to a question?

 

Complete the questions you might ask yourself using the above words -

 

 

...am I being asked to do?

 

...can I find the necessary information?

 

...is the question posed in this way?

 

...must I submit the finished work?

 

...can I turn to for help?

 

...can I best answer the question?

 

 

Once you are ready to start answering your questions, where would you get all the information you need?

 

1.

2.

3.

 

 

Types of reading

Every AS/A level course involves reading so being good at it and knowing what type of reading is best is an important skill to have.

It is possible to read in different ways for different purposes - eg skimming and scanning, or detailed reading. Learning the different techniques can help you to manage your study time, make it less daunting, refresh your memory or introduce you to a new skill!

The task below will introduce the terms and offer some practice examples. You may have come across these terms before and the activities will act as a reminder and reinforcement; for others, this may be the first time you have had an opportunity to learn about these skills.

 

Task 2

All of your AS and A levels subjects have Reading Lists.  Do you have a copies?  If not check with your subject teachers on where you can access copies and then make reading plan - using all of the techniques, as appropriate that you have learned in this session.  Remember being good at reading comes with practice!  

 

 

Task 3

During the session, your Personal Tutor will also undertake the Right Choice Review with you.