Embracing Ambition and Achieving Goals: Chiyo is Racing Towards Her A Levels and on to University

Now in Year 11, Chiyo started at Sedbergh in Year 7 at Sedbergh Prep School (Casterton). Although it meant a lot more work, she remembers enjoying the transition to Senior School and the extra freedoms that come with being a little bit older! Chiyo embodies all of our School values, but she identifies most strongly with ambition.

I think I identify with ambition in the school values the most because I’ve set myself a goal at the start of every academic year, and I’ve been trying to work towards those goals since I joined. But even if I fail or even if I get stuck, it is always those goals that remind me what I should be doing to try and get up on track and achieve those goals.

Beyond the core subjects, I’m studying Music, Photography, Geography, and Latin for my GCSEs. I think my favorite GCSEs are Latin and Maths because it’s like solving a puzzles, trying to find out a solution and there’s always the right answer and I quite like that.

My goal for the rest of the year is to stay on top of everything that I’ve learned so far in year 10 and year 11. I’d like to try and get all 8 and 9s in my GCSEs. So yeah, just going over everything that I’ve learned, trying to do the best I can on all my subjects. My strategy for achieving that is doing loads of past papers and I try to remind myself by reading my notes in the past and go over the things that I’ve gotten wrong in the past in my tests, I think.

I think my teachers have been really helpful in trying to correct things that I haven’t been doing and trying to remind me of all the things that I have to do in order to get the results that I want and they feel really helpful in correcting all the things and trying to support me by giving me ideas.

I have attended Phoenix Society to encourage my debating skills. I think the Phoenix Society has given me quite a lot of critical thinking skills; thinking of ‘fors’ and ‘against’ for arguments, and it’s got me thinking deeper. Not one side, but both sides of arguments. I think that’s really helped me in writing geography essays, because it’s very important to think about different perspectives of an argument and a case study.

For my A levels I want to do Chemistry, Biology, Maths and Latin. At university I think I would like to do something related to science; either biology or chemistry. I’m thinking more biology like biochemistry and marine biology and biology – that sort of thing. I’ve always been very interested in animals, but recently the environment and things we learn in chemistry and biology, fascinate me – like microorganisms and cells. To learn more about my pathway I sometimes go on YouTube and I watch documentaries. I’m trying to read more books as I get into A levels to do more further reading. That’s one of my goals.

My advice for myself next year in A levels is when I am feeling stressed and when I somehow convinced myself that I haven’t been doing enough, it’s okay because everything will work out in the end. I know I’ll try and stay on top of everything to get to my goal, so I shouldn’t really stress. Trying to remind myself to be more confident in myself and the things I do I think are important to myself.

My favorite thing about boarding at this school is that the timings are really structured and there’s always something to get to. It keeps you quite busy and I like that. There’s always something for me to do.

I think the most valuable lesson I’ve learned from Sedbergh is to believe in myself because my teachers have always been encouraging me to believe in myself when I’m in my lowest place, and it’s really been quite useful in my life.