Below are extracts from my senior study guide that I complied on the preliminary forum section which I think will be highly relevant to your yr 10 studies
HOW TO ORGANISE YOUR STUDY TIMETABLE:
I think the best way to make a time table is to make it flexible, whether you have a to-do list by day or organise your day into relaxation and 1 hour long study sessions, do what works for you. There are a few things you should make sure to include in your timetable/to do list to make it effective
1)Always be realistic-don't assign excessive amount of work that you cannot achieved in the designated amount of time you have set aside for yourself
2)Make sure you are flexible-so you can make adjustments to your timetable when extra-curricular and any other unforseen circumstances comes up.
3)Make sure you are studying at times optimal to your concentration and alertness level. Don't assign studying at night if you can't concentrate during that time
4)Include social activities, work commitments, relaxation time into your timetable-a balanced lifestyle is essential for long term academic success
5)Make sure you follow your timetable as closely as possible and try not to have too many carry over tasks to add onto tomorrow's workload. With lots of trial and error, you will find a way of organising time that you will feel comfortable with and which works for you
FOR ENGLISH:
1)write practice essays(but make sure you get a very harsh marker-whether it is your teacher, your tutor, or someone else)-there is no need to write excessively as quality exceed quantity in English and sometimes you need time to think over your ideas-to refine/extend them-so you don't waste so much time procrastinating when you write your essays
2)learn to listen in class-whether it is other people's opinions or your teacher's insights, it will help you formulate your own unique understanding-don't rely on study guides too much-because everyone will be doing the same thing-but check with your teacher that your understanding is not super obscure
3) probably the most important is to use all resources available, your teacher, your tutor(if you have one), the internet, library, etc-and develop a personal passion and understanding into the subject-but don't excessively seek other people's opinion on your work-because you might develop a low self-esteem and start to doubt yourself-so always reflect on each piece of advice whether it is valid or not and keep faith-believe in yourself that you have the capacity to develop independent thinking-and just because it is different from other people-does not necessarily mean it is wrong-just be prepared to back it up with textual evidence
4)read all your texts for English more than once-you really need to develop a comprehensive understanding of the whole text-not just deconstruct a few scenes and forget about the rest of the book).
5)For writing an excellent creative, you should decide what areas you want to explore, construct a 'perfect' story after various edit process, than try to adopt that story to as many creative writing question as possible-i.e. write plans and get someone to mark it for you, like your teacher, and when you come across questions that your story is difficult to mould to, then write another one to cover the rest of the questions, but to write good creative stories, you will need to practice and get feedback as well as read good examples.
Basically, to do well in English, it is just practice, feedback, practice, feedback-unfortunately there is no short cuts at all... this, coupled with perseverance, persistent optimism and consistent performance are the key ingredients to succeeding in English.
For MATHS subjects:
The only way you can study for maths is essentially to understand mathematical concepts, apply your understanding by practice questions of increasing difficulty, and checking your answers and working out with those provided by the textbook or with your teacher/tutor. Before each maths exam, I would also do a summary of all the formulas that I would need and all the tips and tricks for each topic and revise over that before the exam.
One very important tip is to avoid exposing yourself to new, difficult questions the day before the exam-you would often be panicked and this would worsen your exam performance because you are not entering the exam with a calm, clear mind.
Well, I had a habit to try to do my maths homework before it was set-so that I had more time for other subjects like English. I used an actual grid book-I found it particularly useful when I am drawing trigonometry graphs, but it is up to you, it doesn't really matter what type of book you use as long as you set out your questions neatly and in a legible manner. I did divide my pages in half, not to save space, because it was the format I was accustomed to. I would write out the question, write my working out, and ticked or crossed my own work by marking my answers with those of the textbook. And if I got a question wrong, I would re-do it several times until I get it right or I could ask my teacher.
One last important tip I can give you is that you need to ask questions the minute you don't understand something-don't leave any maths lessons without understanding everything about the maths concept conveyed-because maths is a sort of accumulative subject where if you don't understand something and don't clarify it, it can have a snowball effect. I have a habit of writing tips on the silly mistakes I've made or tips to do a certain type of question alongside questions I got wrong and I re-do these questions before the exam and remind myself to avoid making these mistakes.
MATHS is a subject that needs to be practiced on a daily basis, you cannot get away with studying it the day before the actual exam. You need to understand the approach to achieve a solution to the problems, not just knowing how to answer a problem, but knowing the different types of problems you can encounter in any topic and the variation in the solution method to achieve them. Essentially, practice, practice, practice is the key to succeed in Maths.
Hope this helps-if you have any more questions, feel free to PM me
-(and if you just could post what subjects you are doing as well-it could assist all of us to help you even more specifically
) Best wishes for this year