Hey everyone I’m Sarina and I’m studying Spanish, French and Business at the University of Birmingham. However, there were several points during my time at sixth form where I didn’t think it would be possible to be where I am now! I’d been struggling during Year 12 with Religious Studies especially, and the new specification that came with the new A-Levels, and found it very demanding. Following mocks, I didn’t do as well as I hoped and was far off the B that I needed to get into Birmingham, so decided that I needed to take action and focus a lot more of my time on improving my Religious Studies grade.

The small group format was excellent as RS involves a lot of discussion based work

I’d explored 1-1 tutoring over Skype for a couple of months but it just wasn’t working – I like working in groups – and felt that especially with Religious Studies where there was a lot of discussion based work – that it was important to have other people to share your thoughts and ideas with. I was looking online with my family and came across Justin Craig – one of the only companies that I found that were tutoring the new specification of Religious Studies. As the A level exams were rapidly approaching, I decided that to really get the B that I needed, to sign up for the Easter Revision Course.

Our tutor was fantastic …really inspiring and approachable

Before attending the course, I was worried that there might not be enough time to focus on specific topics that I needed help on personally, but my tutor was fantastic and got in contact with me a couple weeks before the course began and we were able to discuss what I’d like to focus on and where my strengths and weaknesses were, and she was able to establish a programme that worked for everyone in the group, ensuring that we would cover everything that we wanted as a group and leaving me with no worries or apprehensions about the course.

Our tutor was really inspiring and approachable in the way that she integrated real-life examples into her content and spoke to us about her journey through education as well, and allowed us to really bond as a group as well by doing lots of pair and group work. Something that I was surprised about was that we all became a really tight group by the end of the course, and even following the course, continued to share resources with each other and help each other, and to this day I am still in touch with some of them!

The course itself surpassed my expectations, and the same was said by the rest of my group.

The best bits of the course were really honing in on exam technique and being able to see the improvement that I made over the four days with regular exam practise and feedback, tied in to sessions where we able to focus on content that we were unsure about through different learning techniques such as mind maps, testing, group discussion. The course was really tailored to what we wanted as a group and we were able to spontaneously change what we had planned for the programme as well to suit our needs and also receive 1-1 feedback.

Getting individual feedback was extremely helpful

It was really great to receive individual feedback on essay plans and understand what I was doing well and where I needed to focus on, especially so close to the exam. Coming out of the course, and returning back to 6^th Form following the course, I definitely went back with a fresh perspective and improved confidence, along with a stronger understanding of essay technique – which helped me boost my grade in practise mocks that took place before the exam – where I achieved consistent B’s. Before the exam, I used all the resources that we created and shared on the course to help solidify my revision.

I managed to achieve the B I needed in Religious Studies – and was very close to achieving an A!

Having worried for so long about this, I was elated that I’d been able to get through it all and see how much I had improved over the previous two years.

I have recommended Justin Craig to all my friends and family, and would highly recommend to any of you reading this to enrol on their courses, whether it be because you aren’t getting the grades required, lacking confidence, direction, understanding or because you need that push to help you achieve better than you would like! The Easter Revision Course was perfect for me as it got me into the routine of revising during the Easter holidays as well, but I would recommend that you get started as soon as possible – even perhaps the summer of Year 12!

I would really like to thank my Justin Craig tutor who definitely boosted my confidence – something that I lacked before the course and for Justin Craig as a whole for helping me to achieve my goal of getting into the University of Birmingham!