Author: Dan Nixon
Posted: 01 Sep 2015
Estimated time to read: 3 mins
Starting secondary school can be a terrifying ordeal! New surroundings, new teachers, an insane amount of new things to learn, and most terrifying of all...new people you've never met before! Do not fear though, Satchel have put together an essential survival guide to get you through those nervous early days.
Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail
The week before school starts is the perfect time for you to make sure the basics are covered. You want to make sure your stationery game is strong! Pencils, pens, rulers, maybe even get a cheeky compass in there. You only live once, go nuts! You don’t want to get to school and not be able to write down all the amazing things you’re learning.
Next, you’re going to want to make sure your uniform is ready to go, you want to be looking sharp on your first day. Pairing your sharp look with a pencil case full of stationary bling means you’re bound to impress.
Know Your Territory
Some of you lucky kids will be chauffeured to school like mini royalty by your ever willing parents, whilst others will have the luxury of a school bus. If that is the case then this won’t apply to you. For the hardcore kids amongst you, who walk to school like I used to, you need to get that terrain on lockdown.
Being late on your first day is simply not an option! You don’t want to set off 20 minutes before only to find 45 minutes later that the school is still nowhere in sight. Make sure you have a rough idea of how long it takes to get there and start as you mean to go on.
Know Your Timetable
So you've made it to school on time in the morning, but don’t be getting carried away now, this is only the beginning. You may have impressed your form tutors but now it’s time to get all your subject teachers in the bag. The one thing you don’t want to do is make a bad impression by being late, you’ll be seeing these teachers a lot over the year and life will be so much easier if they don’t hate your guts.
Making sure you know where you need to be and at what time is key. Make sure you familiarise yourself with your timetable, because if you want that prime real estate in class (the best seat next to your mates) then you need to be there on time. If you get there late you’re going to be stuck in the seat that nobody wants, and that’s usually the one right at the front where the teacher can see and hear everything you’re doing...nobody can save you if you get that seat...nobody…
Be Yourself
When you start high school you’ll have a nice group of friends courtesy of your primary school days. You will also meet a load of new people, which can seem terrifying at first, but in time, some of the people that you meet will go on to be good friends.
Almost all people experience nerves when starting something new and meeting new people, so it’s completely normal if you are too. You could always use our flow chart to find out what game you should be playing with your new friends, to help break the ice. Don’t forget, everybody is in the same boat as you! Just be yourself and out of that crowd of strangers will emerge amazing friends you’ll have the time of your life with.
There’s no set route through school, each and everyone of you will have a different experience. People always say school days are the best days of your life. This is something you won’t necessarily appreciate when you’re sitting through that horrible lesson you hate, or when you’re revising and getting stressed out over that exam.
Always bear in mind though for every boring lesson you have to sit through they’ll be an amazing one you love, and for every lost evening spent revising, you’ll have amazing ones spent with the friends you have made.
If you embrace the experience, apply yourself and work hard there’s a good chance they might very well turn out to be the best days of your life, but you’ll just have to trust me on that one.
