studentfocus You are surrounded by intellectual students and it has made me go the extra mile I have found Cardiff Sixth Form College boarding to be really lovely, I love sport and play football, basketball and volleyball here and really enjoy the inter-house competitions we have. I also go swimming and to the gym. Every Friday my friends and I watch movies and eat pizza in the common room which is really fun and we go into town at the weekends. The staff have made things really easily available for us and are always there to talk to. Some weekends we have gone out and taken part in activities such as Go-Karting, the Escape Room and Paintballing and I always use the weekends to catch up on homework and sleep! I have so enjoyed the teaching here and it is different to what I experienced in Nigeria. The practical science lessons are my favourite where we do lots of experiments and work together to figure out how and why reactions take place. In addition, the careers department have given me lots of individual support. They organise external speakers to come and talk to us about a range of topics, explain in detail how to apply to university and even have brought our alumni back to explain what studying engineering at university is like. As I want to be an electrical engineer this was really helpful! For me the difference at Cardiff has been that I now completely understand what I am taught. I often used to rely on cramming in Nigeria but I now read around my subjects, research online and listen to podcasts so I feel I am much better prepared for university. You are surrounded by intellectual students and it has made me go the extra mile. Although it is a very academic college, it is actually really fun. The College has a real mixture of students and some real personalities. I have found it really easy to make friends and there is no bad behaviour here - you can talk to anyone. I not only have friends from Nigeria but also from Malaysia, UK and Hong Kong for example. I love the diversity. I met my first friend playing basketball and now we are all one big family. Shaakir – Boarder at Cardiff Sixth Form College. 10 UK SCHOOLS DIRECTORY 2018/19