Home Study Guide

Home Study Tips for Year 11 to 13 Chemistry Students, April 2020

We are all trying to get used to a new way of living over these next few weeks/months, which is likely to be a difficult adjustment and a challenge for many of us. Year 11 and year 13 students have obviously been particularly hard hit due to the closure of schools and the cancellation of GCSE and A-Level exams in the summer, and for Year 12 students a large proportion of the A-level curriculum will now be delivered remotely.

I have therefore put together a short guide to studying at home to hopefully help you cope with this period of home-confinement, and to be as well prepared as possible when life finally gets back to normal. Schools will be supporting their students in different ways, and your school/college website should be the first port of call, but it will be up to you, and to some extent your parents, to motivate yourself, to plan and structure your study time, and help ensure you make the best of this unexpected free time.

Useful Free Resources:

https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/

https://www.khanacademy.org/

https://www.freesciencelessons.co.uk/

Year 11 Students:

If you are expecting to begin studying for A-levels in the autumn, it is vitally important that you are well prepared. The transition from GCSE to A-Levels is a steep one, particularly in chemistry, and even in a normal year many students find starting A-levels quite a shock to the system. You may be feeling a little deflated right now, and not inclined to study, but it is vitally important that you complete the remainder of the GCSE curriculum, which will now be taught remotely. Topics such as oxidation reduction, energy changes, organic chemistry: functional groups and reactions, titrations and mole calculations are studied in greater depth at A-level. Furthermore, there is a large knowledge base that is vitally important to success at A-level: the formulae of common ions, tests for gases and ions, etc. Revising these topics and ultimately attempting past exam papers will help prepare you for the transition.

Year 12 Students:

The early closure of all schools obviously means that a large portion of the A-level curriculum will be taught remotely. Success in chemistry A-level is largely about having a strong knowledge base, and also the reasoning skills and problem-solving skills to apply this knowledge. Year 12 aims to build a strong knowledge platform and understanding of key theoretical concepts, which is vitally important for success in year 13. Important topics that underpin the year 13 curriculum include organic synthesis: functional groups and the organic synthesis map, tests for common anions, mole calculations such as percentage yields, structure bonding including intermolecular forces, energetics: in particular Hess s Law and energy definitions, acids and bases, reaction rates and equilibria: these two topics are often confused! A clear understanding of concepts such as electronegativity, ionisation, electrostatic forces, polarity and oxidation state is also vitally important.

Year 13 Students:

You make not feel very much like studying right now, after the rug was well and truly pulled from under your feet by the cancellation of the exams, but if you switch off completely you will miss an opportunity to be focussed, prepared and ready when your education formally resumes. Think of the huge number of hours of revision you would have been doing between now and June: if you replace this with minimal studying you will be missing out on a wealth of knowledge, skills and study discipline. You may not have a confirmed university place yet but if you visit the websites of university courses you have applied for you should be able to find the core first year modules and their learning outcomes, and you may be able to do some revision/reading to help prepare for these. At least one of your A-level subjects is likely to be a vitally important foundation to your degree course, hence revision of your A-level notes would be a huge help by replacing at least some of your lost A-level exam revision. Transferrable skills are of huge importance in all university degree courses, and you can work on some of these at home: numerical problem-solving, plotting graphs interpreting data, condensing summarising information using flashcards, etc. Finally, if you do receive disappointing news when the grades are released in July, my understanding is that there will be an opportunity to sit the exams in the autumn. Any studying you do over the next few weeks will help keep things fresh in your mind and put you in a good place for the exams.

General Home-Study Tips:

Have a designated study space, quiet and away from distractions: if possible, use a different room or area from where you eat, watch TV, play games, exercise, etc. Put your phone away when you are studying!

Make yourself a study timetable, ideally divided into a number of 30 to 45 minute sessions per day with short breaks in between (studies on attention span generally recommend no more than 45 minutes without a break).

Set yourself realistic and achievable targets in terms of the number of hours you spend studying: a little is better than none at all

Try to study at a time of day that is right for you: some of us are up with the larks while some are night-owls, so try to study at the time of day when your brain is most alert

Use a timer to help track your progress and to stick to your study timetable, and to make sure your studying does not over-run and eat into your down-time

Include rewards, eg break times, afternoons off from study, and enjoy these times, guilt-free because you have earned them!

Make handwritten notes and condense key information on flashcards (studies show that writing down key information aids retention)

Keep as much variety as possible in your studying, to help maintain the stimulus and alleviate boredom: text books, school website information, YouTube videos, worksheets, rote-learning of definitions. you could even ask parents/siblings to help, eg testing your knowledge of key facts

Try to eat well and stay hydrated, and try to get a good nights sleep each night: this helps to refresh and reset the brain making you more alert and able to process tasks the next day

The coronavirus situation is a worrying and stressful time for all of us, and it is a time when family and friends need to support each other. Like most bad things in life, this will pass.