5 Top Tips for New A Level Sociology Students

So the start of the new academic year is nearly upon us and young people up and down the country are about to embark on A level study. The first entry of this new blog is designed to give sociology students advice on how to make a flying start on A level Sociology!

Here are my 5 top tips. None are particularly ground breaking, but they are really useful and practical things to do to ensure that students develop the skills necessary to be successful studying A Level Sociology and beyond.

Many of these tips are transferable to pretty much any subject, not just Sociology!

1. Read the Papers

As a teacher I have found increasingly that the students who excel in A Level Sociology are the ones that are most interested in it. The subject touches upon a range of other areas such as politics, economics, philosophy and RS, all of which feature most days in the national press. This doesn’t mean you have to scour the broadsheets every day for hours on end, but if you take 5 minutes each day to use your smartphone o r tablet to read up on the main stories of the day you will soon find that much of this can be linked to what you will be doing in the classroom.

2. Ask Questions

The simple message here is students have to be proactive. If you do not understand something or if you missed something, ask about it. The majority of students will not choose to ask a question in front of the class. This is understandable as students often do not want to show themselves up as ‘not getting it’. If this is the case make a note of the question(s) and take 2 minutes to ask the teacher at the end of the session, or as the teacher comes round in the lesson.

Even if the teacher has to get to another lesson, the chances are they will arrange a 5 minute slot later in the day to revisit the topic. Don’t forget you can also email questions, or post on forums in your VLE as well (teachers are not the only source of info, your peers can help too). Plus, if enough students ask about a topic that they don’t understand, the teacher will get the idea that the topic needs more attention.

3. (If you are not already) Get on Twitter

This tip is linked to the first. Quite frankly there is no better way to keep up with what happens in the world than Twitter, there is also a huge range of A level Sociology specific information on there too. If you are already on twitter but your feed is full of news on Kim and Kanye, try to expand your follows to include the likes of @kenbrowne @chrislivesy @martinholborn.

These are the people who write the textbooks, so it is worth listening to what they are saying. If you are not on there, sign up and start soaking up the 140 character pearls of wisdom.

Try giving @SEsociology a follow as well (that’s me!) and of course tutor2u Sociology so you can get the latest resources from this blog

4. Make a Plan

There will be more on this later but ultimately you need to ask yourself three questions.

1. Where am I now?
2. Where do I want to be in 2 years?
3. What do I need to do to get there?

This needs to be focused on skills and attributes that are key to academic success but should not be limited to ‘I want a B in Sociology’ or ‘I want to get into Uni’. You should also consider what extra- curricular ambitions you have and what work experience ambitions you have. The answers to question 3 will be the most important to your development so this needs the most thought. Skill development is crucial, so I will return to this later.

5. Be Realistic

Whenever individuals take on new things, whether it is changing diet, doing more exercise or studying new courses the key to success is to make small but effective and sustainable changes.

If you take the approach that now you are an A level student there can be no more netflix marathons, no more time spent with mates and 4 hours a day with your nose in a book, the chances are you will have given up on some or all of these within 3 weeks.

You are not a Robot, you will still need time to relax, sleep and socialise. What you need to do is identify something you need to do a bit less of (most likely Netflix) and something you need to do a bit more of (I would advise reading).

Equally, the opposite is also true. If you take the view that your study habits from GCSE’s will be sufficient for A levels, you may be caught out as the level of study is a lot more detailed and the skills required are more complex. A level Sociology is tough and you will need to develop your skills and work hard over the course of two years, so do not be complacent.

Off we go with A Level Sociology...

It is quite well known that 45% of world leaders have a social science degree of some description so A level Sociology is a great starting point to much bigger things, hopefully these tips will help you get off to a great start.