Back to School: Survival Guide

The official plan is to put up new posts every Monday and Thursday that I will write over the weekend (let’s forget that I’m already a day late…). Also, every Sunday I’m going to start releasing a weekly newsletter (sign up below!) with blog updates, life updates, life tips, blog tips, blog behind the scenes and anything else that comes to mind. For example with blog tips, something I always get asked is not only do I get paid from blogging, but also how I get paid from blogging, this and more are the types of things I want to get my chin wagging about in a weekly newsletter. As you know I’ve just hit to desk for a full time analyst investment banking role; I work a minimum of 12 hours a day (other than on Fridays), so it’s been hard getting myself organised. But I have big plans for the future and Skylish is one of them, so there’s no time to slack! Regardless, hope you guys will like something a bit more routine over here, and forgive me if I do miss some days here and there!

 

Some back to school stationary inspiration: “Gazelle London is an African-inspired stationary brand. The first collection for the brand will be the Thoughts-keepers collection, but the range will expand to include a multitude of beautiful stationary accessories over the coming year. The Thoughts-Keepers themselves, are covered in beautiful, 100% Cotton Ankara fabrics traditional to West Africa, and they are a space to express your inner thoughts!” Check out Gazelle London here*

I’ve been meaning to write a back to school post for a good two weeks now, seeing as all the school kids actually went back at the beginning of September, but – better late than never! School sometimes isn’t the easiest time, especially with a bunch of puny kids sometimes trying to be ‘cool’, cliquey and occasionally rude; I generally had quite a nice school life, there were definitely some things that I felt like I just had to get through, but I was able to make some good life long friends and great memories during school.

What do you need to survive?

Surviving Cliques

School is incredibly cliquey, and in fact my school had a reputation of being one of the most cliquey schools in our area. Forming groups is natural, wherever you go there’ll be people you naturally gravitate towards, and more times than not, you’ll find yourself in some kind of group. In my school we had the ‘rugby boys’ and the ‘girlfriends of the rugby boys’, along with a group that called themselves ‘the batch’, a group that people called ‘the church girls’, and sometimes you’d even be grouped just depending on your form class (e.g. ‘the ‘D’ lot’). In school, with everyone a bit more immature, these cliques/groups hold a lot more value than in the real world – for example, there are your ‘cool’ groups, there are your less ‘cool’ groups, and when you’re young – these things are a big deal. My advice is just not to close yourself off, naturally you’ll find yourself in a group, but don’t stop yourself from meeting other groups/other types of people. Also, be careful who you become acquainted with, as if you get in with the wrong types of people you can very quickly find yourself in trouble. Throughout school I always had my *girls*, and I’m still friends with a lot of these girls that I group up with. We’d find ourselves acquainted with different groups over time, but were able to enjoy a pretty good school life, happy within ourselves whilst still socialising with others.

Surviving Puberty

I’m not going to lie, I went into school thinking I was foine, and very quickly into my first year, I lost all my confident and thought I was hideously unattractive. I remember once actually going to bed and praying that I would wake up pretty. When you’re young and going through puberty you’re still trying to get used to what works for you, you’re learning how to take care of your skin when it starts changing, you’re learning how to use makeup and learning about your style (given that you were probably solely dressed by your mum before) – there are a lot of changes. The boys in my school when we were a lot younger would make lists marking the pretty to least pretty girls in the year and these type of things I would truly let get to me especially when I was still figuring out what worked for me (you know, small adjustments like learning that oiling your face with vaseline every morning maybe isn’t the best idea). So, what’s my advice to do with this? I think this is one of those things you just get through and one of those things that just get better. Never take too much to heart. Ironically, the people making these lists have amounted to a whole lot of nothing. And some of the girls getting slaughtered in the list? Look like models these days.

Getting the Grades

I’ve always been quite good at getting decent grades. After being in secondary school for two years I decided one day to put more effort into my work; that year for exams I started working a good ten hours a day, got some good grades and also won an award for my grades! Ever since then, I started working pretty hard to get the highest grades I could get. GCSE’s, do they matter? I mean, we’re told at the time that they’re the most important exams of our lives – they’re definitely not. But, they do matter. Employees still ask for them over 6 years later, and they’re needed to secure a place in a good sixth form or college. A Levels, they definitely matter, because that’s what takes you to a good uni. School isn’t too hard compared to what comes in the future, so work hard and reap the rewards later.

Constant Growth

You know me – I’m all about self development. Each new year (even, each new day) is a chance to grow and change. I’d typically treat each new school year as a ‘new me’ kind of phase, I’d think about what I wanted to change and how I could be a better version of myself. A real issue for me when I was younger was dealing with shyness, so each year I’d push to try and improve that. These days, I’m definitely still quiet, but I wouldn’t say shy. I have a lot of confidence in myself and I don’t find it hard to talk and socialise with others, I’m just generally a more chilled, not extremely loud person – and that’s just me. Some of these things come with age, and I definitely still have a lot of growth to go, but for the most part it’s just about identifying what you want to change, and pushing yourself to change it.

For all my younger readers, I hope you find this guide useful! School is a care free, responsibility free time, so enjoy it – you’ll definitely meet some life long friends there. If you’d like a more personal chat, feel free to e-mail me (admin@skylish.co.uk), I always respond! I’m also very active on social media and you can find my links below. Also check out Gazelle London if you’re in need of some stationary – very happy to be supporting a black owned business!