I Hated Sixth Form

I'm going to start off by saying that sixth form started out pretty fun. I'd happily do first year again. I made some great friends and enjoyed my classes pretty well. I don't have much to complain about the first year other than I did amazingly terrible on my AS exams. Three Us. Yay.

I took media, film, and travel and tourism as first year courses with EFAS as an added bonus for not getting a B in GCSE English. EFAS is just primary school level compulsory English classes with no exams so it wasn't all bad. It's a class where you didn't really have to do anything. The worst thing about that, I'd say, was having to hold a presentation to the class every week which was pretty scary. But after we got past the Christmas holidays, no one cared what you looked like or what you talked about.

Media was my favourite of the three courses I was graded on simply because there was no limit to the creativity I could have in the classes. Also the teacher, Chris, was probably the best tutor I've had. There was a rumour going around that he had a mental condition that was basically the opposite of depression, where you rarely ever feel sad. True or not, it was believable because he was bubbly and excited every time I saw him, even when he was talking about being stressed out his mind. He's teaching film studies as well now.

I decided to create a hand drawn animation for my coursework which proved that I bitten off more than I could chew and didn't end up finishing it in time.

Film studies was pretty fun, the lessons just felt like they dragged. It was definitely the hardest of the three. You weren't just watching movies and writing about them. There was everything behind the — in cinemas, box office and everything in between. When you're writing about movies, you're writing about everything that shows up on screen. The lighting, the mise en scene, the camera angle, performance, sound, everything and what it signifies. Imagine you're reading a book in English class and you have to analyse every line because every word the author wrote was perfectly constructed and it's you mission in life to find the significance. That but on a screen. For two years.

Travel and tourism was very fun. It wasn't hard either, it was just a lot of studying and reminding yourself on terms such as domestic tourism, niche tourism and so on. My main issue was the coursework and the fact the tutor only showed up for half the lessons. Sounds fun, right? Getting an extra hour? Not for me because her lessons were either first thing in the morning or last lesson of the day and when she doesn't tell you she's not there until you walk in and wait fifteen minutes until you realise she's not coming, that means you wasted at least an hour in bed depending if you have free period afterwards, or you didn't know you could go home an hour earlier and you didn't know you were forced to stay there.

Also the coursework was an issue because our year, she decided to move the start date later but keep the deadline the same. So we had only half the time we would usually have to organise a school trip outside off premises. The year before and after ours, had double the time to get it done which resulted in our year getting hardly anything finished in time.

What made things worse was that it was a group project and guess who involuntarily took charge? Yours truly.

I was in a group of five and between us, we had to decide — where we would like to go and what customers would be willing to pay money to do? We decided on Comic Con. Three of us were happy with that idea but the other two wanted to talk a nature walk somewhere and the rest of us all agreed that customers wouldn't want to pay £30 -£40 to take a half hour walk in a forest. But they would for an overnight stay in Manchester with a huge costume party a ten minute walk away from the hostel.

But because the two babies didn't want to pull their faces straight, they pretty much refused to do anything unless I suggested something. I was also the only one to turn up to every meeting even though someone else was elected captain. The other two who agreed with me to go to Comic Con weren't that much better but they were more enthusiastic about going at least.

But we found ourselves running out of time very quickly when we had a week to get the permission slips out and collect the money. Because a group member who didn't want to go lied about saying he put the slips out for taking, we didn't end up going and we had to book a very last minute trip to Lancaster Castle that used to be a prison that doubled as an execution ground. It was where the last execution was held in Britain, a not so fun fact.

So that was delightful.

And then there was the paperwork we had to add onto that which took well over ten attempts to get right. Came out with a C.

Then I finished my AS exams and came out with the worst possible grade. Two Us in media and travel and tourism and an E in film. I cried, I'm not going to lie. I burst out in tears. My friends we there to comfort me, at least and I was able to get my media teacher to shed tears for me. The guy who was never sad about anything.

So second year rolled around and I had a bumpy start. Because I didn't pass media, I had to start the year again and I decided against taking travel and tourism again because of the amount of stress that put me through. I continued with film for a second year because I passed that by the skin of my teeth. I still has to retake the first year exam.

To replace T+T, I took art which was a two year course and despite being an art fanatic, I hated that class to my core and I'll tell you why later.

Shortly before the new school year, our college merged with another college for funding, which obviously didn't work because they had to make serious budget cuts, and every reason why the college couldn't do something was because of money. They were also very strict about lanyard and IDs this year for unknown reasons. If you forgot yours, buy a fake one for the day. Once, there was about five teachers guarding the entrance to the college to check everyone had their ID on them. They even started walking into classrooms to check. They were also really uncomfortable with the clip on the back of your neck. Some people's scratched so much that they started bleeding, but you still weren't allowed to take them off. I put tape around mine.

PPMs. The secretaries of the college must have forgotten to do their job over the holidays because magically, no one got their emails. Ever. I seriously wonder what they did in that office all day that had them glued to their computer. That, or they became illiterate and were trying to teach themselves how to write and send an email. Even the tutors got angry with them.

I'm pretty sure my PPM was trying to trip me up where she saw fit. If you talk to her, you'll think she's a really nice woman but nope. I realised that when she yelled at me in front of the class for taking the Wednesday off because all my classes we cancelled. What did make me happy about that was that one of the new coworkers at my job was in the same class and she was just as shocked as I was. The class she yelled at me in was the most pointless class to attend. We just showed up to get notifications about the college which could be easily sent in an email. Oh yeah, they don't know how to do that. Half the time, they were fashionably late. Once, our PPM couldn't stress enough that the next class was absolutely compulsory so matter what. Under no circumstances were you to skip her next class.

Shockingly, the day before that important class, she did send an email to the students to remind them that the class was still highly compulsory and a few other things about upcoming events.

So we all show up to the class. She finally decided to show up after 20 min after when it was supposed to start. And what was this oh so important class about? What do we all desperately need to know in this class that one guy missed a funeral for? The secret to the meaning of life as we know it? Everything that she just said in the email the day before.

I wasted a sleep in... for that. Constant reminders about a top priority class just to tell us a second time that there was an engineering event thing happening next week. Words could not describe how angry I was at that woman.

What made me dislike her even more was that she threatened to call my parents because I wasn't attending a compulsory class for all students. It wasn't even a class. You just sat there in the library in absolute silence for an hour to do homework. That's okay when you have homework but when you don't have it, you just pretend that you have it so the supervisor doesn't tell you that you should have it. Or you can study but no one can study for an hour straight with no breaks. No one I know, anyway. I usually just signed my name to say I was there then sneaked out the back through the other library next door.

But for a while, I didn't sign my name in because I noticed that my attendance wasn't going down on my school admin so I though there was no harm done. It turns out, there's a secret admin that records the real attendances and mine was apparently really low. "Oh no." So she said that if I don't start attending, she'll have to call my parents.

Now, I'd understand this if I was 16. But because I spent two years at that college, I was now 18 which makes me a legal adult so they can't legally phone my parents. There was a guy in my art class who was older than 30, would they call his parents if he wasn't showing up? No. So why would they with me? I would have corrected her and told her she couldn't do that because I was 18, but after the art fiasco with my tutor that I'll explain in a minute, I'd rather avoid all confrontation and just sneak out the back like I always did.

Now, we move on to my art class. The tutor did tell me that the course was high in demand and you would have to live, breathe, and sleep art. And that's what it was. It really was. I did enjoy it, however, for the most part. I Just wasn't allowed to use the materials I wanted. You could paint with coffee if you wanted to but I wasn't allowed to use markers. She asked me what I preferred to work with and I said alcohol-based markers to which I was met with a look of "Seriously? That?" It's because they tend to give off a cartoony look to art pieces which she didn't like but I didn't care. Besides, they don't always look that way if you use them correctly. I also wasn't allowed to use coloured pencils until about half way through the year because reasons.

I will now list a bunch of reasons why either my friend or I got in trouble. Or just stupid things she did just to get at my friend and I:

• I used the wrong acrylics to paint a background in my sketch book, offered to buy them a new bottle and my friend got yelled at.
• She was spying on us when we were in the cafeteria because we kept seeing her watching us from behind the corner and the same people from our class walked past us repeatedly.
• Heaven forbid we eat out lunch. In the cafeteria!!!???? We must take no more than 20 minutes to eat in the cafeteria then more art in the classroom for the rest of lunch.
• Every free period you have must be spent in the art class, no exceptions. Anyone breaking this rule will be spied on.
• I took two hours to finish a painting when I should spend at least 48 because someone else did.
• My friend and I aren't at the same level as someone who had been in that class for three years.
• I didn't jump three grades up in art in the length of a semester.

This is my favourite moment. Or at least the most memorable.

We're allowed to use our phones in class on the condition we're just listening to music or drawing from it. I was trying to find a photo I took of a flower. I'm pretty sure I still have it because I loved it that much.

So I was scrolling through my camera roll to find it and for some reason, it took me a while. Not too long to get suspicious that I wasn't working though. But long long enough for the assistant teacher to ask what I was doing. I didn't mind him, he was nice. I told him I'm just looking for a photo to print out and draw. So he nods and repeats what I said to my tutor. The moment I find the picture and email it to myself, my tutor yells at me over the class to get off my phone. I was already really pissed off at her for giving my friends a hard time about an hour ago over something dumb that I can't remember. So I stood up to go to the computer room and yelled back at her, "I'm printing off a picture, keep your knickers (underwear) on." I know that sounds hard to believe and sounds like one of those reddit r/thathappened posts but I'm not kidding, that's what I said and I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. The class was silent.

So I walking into the computer room which was attached to the classroom with a glass door and walls. I went onto Photoshop to play with some effects to make the flower look prettier before printing and this girl I didn't know came in but I knew she was in out class because she was one of the people walking back and forth past my friends and I in the cafeteria.

She came in with the end of her thumb in her mouth and asked me very quietly that our tutor asked me not to talk to her like that. Like I didn't know not to talk to teachers like that and that the norm was to sit back and take it. I just said fine and she left. I was almost done on Photoshop and was about to print when my tutor came in and told me that she was telling me to get off my phone (loudly) because, apparently, I never do anything in her class. to which I said, "But look, I'm doing something now, I'm printing a picture to draw."

I thought she was going to leave, saying, "Okay, never mind, just make sure it's good" or something or other.

Instead, she she slammed her hands down on the desk and yelled "FINE! I TRIED! IF I WANTED TO TEACH PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN, I WOULDN'T BE HERE!"

At least class was almost over.

So I went home and told my mum what happened and she really wasn't happy. I didn't want her to, but she drove back to the college to talk to her. She came back on my tutor's side, saying that I never do anything in class. To be fair, I din't do as much work as the other students because I had coursework for film and media that needed to be done in college because I didn't have the same programmes at home that I did in college so their argument was invalid.

There was also the time where she asked what I wanted to do after college and I told her I wanted to go to university and study Japanese and teach English in Japan. She gave me this look like it was the most ridiculous thing I could pull out my ass. I did tell her that the only reason why I took art was to get the right grades to get into my university of choice.

I told my media tutor, who I respect very much. about this and he encouraged me to ignore her and do what I want with my life

Later in the year, my friend had to move away to a new college so I felt pretty lonely. She took the same course in her new college and our sketchbooks were identical in terms of layout in order of art projects. Like week one was portraits, week two was landscapes, week three was sculpting, etc because that's how we were told to layout out sketchbooks because the examiners want it that way. We were at a C level-ish, probably less.

But when my friend showed her sketchbook to her new tutor, she rearranged the pages and went from a C-ish to an A. Like, what the actual hell?! I told my mum this and she thought to go back and talk to her but this time, I really did not let her go back. She didn't see the harm in it but she didn't have to see my tutor every day and have to communicate with her.

My tutor did apologise to me through my mum at least about the yelling and slamming her hands on the desk.

Finally... the year ended. I took my exams, left my sketchbook in the art class, never to be seen again and I got a D in both media and film, which I gladly took.

Before the year was over, my mum wanted me to make banana bread because we had lots of uneaten bananas that were slowly going off and she thought I should use them. I spent around nine hours in the kitchen, making banana breads. I think I made around seven. Some were more like cake because we only had one bread tin.

So as a thank you to Chris and Susanna, my media and film tutors, I gave them a banana bread and a thank you card each. In the card, I said something along the line of "I've had a very rough second year so thank you for not being one of the staff who were trying to trip me up."

I got a hug from Chris and a very sincere "Thank You" from Susanna.

I didn't talk a lot about Susanna because like Chris, there was nothing about her that I could complain about. It was obvious she loved her job and she worked very hard to help us all do well. But there are some funny times we had with her as a teacher.

One of the movies we were studying was Fight Club and that has some sexual moments in it. Instead of calling the parts what they're really called, she named them Willies and HooHaas.

She also wasn't a stranger to sick days off because she was constantly injuring herself outside of college. My favourite time what when she tore a load of tendons in her arm from when she fell off a child's scooter.

Also, once, this is my favourite moment; it was the end of the lesson and we were all packing up until she asked the class, "Oh, by the way, I was wondering if I could ask you something about what we were talking about in the staff room. What does 'getting the D mean'?". The class just stopped and looked at each other, not wanting to give the answer to our teacher. "Is it rude?" she asked.

Unfortunately for my friends and I, we were were the furthest away from the door so we were the last to leave and had to answer her question. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone you told me." My friend left it up to me to tell her. So I tried explaining it in the most formal way that I could. That the letter D is the first letter of a slang term of the male genitalia. She didn't get that so I tried again. "D-I-C-K... D... Getting the D...?" She got that and let us go. My friends and I laughed about it for the rest of the day.

I'm in a different college now, studying animal management. I'm really enjoying myself, it's just that assignments pile up very quickly. If that flips on its head, I'll be sure to let you know.