Submitted Article 3 : Rules of the 6th Form
With regards to 'A' levels one of the things that surprised me the most, after promising us an exceptional further education, were the distractions from learning - which was after all what we were there for.
One of the greatest causes of anxiety was with regards to uniforms, the list of what was acceptable (not much) and unacceptable (a lot) was very difficult to comply to and the majority of the lower sixth was spent worring about whether your uniform passed the criteria, it roughly comprised an A4 page of script with pointless rules such as 'no coat with a zip may be worn' thus parents were forced to go and purchase their sons a totally new selection of school clothes, which I guess is perfectly reasonable considering QE Boy's isn't really interested in the needs of individual students who can't afford the new 'uniform', only on those whose parents can afford to donate large quantities of money to the school.
'Private study' was another seriously pointless waste of time in the 6th form, it was a few hours a week where students were forced into a room and told to work, most of the time which was spent passing notes and discretely listening to walkmen. Biology students were lucky and could work in the biology lab, which involved sitting unsupervised for a couple of hours talking. Eventually people simply refused to cooperate and when teachers attempted to shut them up by staring at me, the students simply stared back at them until they looked away - then were allowed to talk freely for the rest of private study - However, I must note QE Boy's only employ teachers who maintain discipline providing the strong foundations of the school, of course...
Thus many students predicted grades suffered due to countless pointless distractions from work and were simply refused the 'privilege' of sitting the exams at QE Boys - another fine example of the type of ill-advised practices which make up this fine establishment.
