Now I understand why we were made to do sports at school.

Out of the last 7 days, I have spent 6 at my study provider in Birmingham and the 7th at work, and I feel drained. By the time I reached study day 4 I could have easily fallen asleep in the classroom.

The simple act of dashing from the classroom to the train station, dragging my study materials with me, really did wake me up and that was when I, finally, made to connection between study and exercise.

You do need to move about to wake you up after intense study periods and that is what they were trying to do for us at school, it wasn't intended to be the torture I took it for.

I didn't hate all sport, I loved swimming, I started going to the swimming baths as soon as I was out of nappies (no waterproof swimming nappies back then) and I was taking lessons by the age of 3 (there were no mummy/baby classes then either), so enjoyed swimming at school always picking it when there was an option.

I also enjoyed hockey, I played in the days of the 'bully off'', no sanitised passback for me.

In the summer, when we had to do athletics, I opted for the javelin, shot and discus, the attraction possibly being that they were all originally weapons, though I didn't make the connection at the time.

So maybe I should be grateful to Mrs Thomas, Mrs Friebe, little Mr Jones and big Mr Jones instead of seeing them as medieval torturers, they were trying to do their best for us!

ACCA - My Journey So Far.

Last weekend I finally received the results of the ACCA exams I sat at the beginning of December.  I had passed 2 of the 3 so I am happy with that.  I have 3 Skills modules left (the exam I failed plus 2 others) until I can officially call myself 'Part Qualified', I then have a further 5 Professional modules until I am fully qualified.

For anyone thinking about starting to study ACCA, I have some info and tips for you.

Check your exemptions.  If you are AAT qualified you will be exempt from modules F1, F2 & F3 (I won't list all the modules here but they can be found on the ACCA website), if you have a relevant degree then you will be exempt from further modules, you would need to look into that as it will vary from degree to degree.  From what I have observed in classes, AAT will prepare you better for studying ACCA.

You can sit the exams in any order.  If you do need to sit F1-F3 you have to do so before you move on to the next set, or Skills Modules which are F4-F9.  These can be sat in any order, I studied F6 & F8 first, then F4 (the exam I failed in December) & F5, leaving me F4 to resit and also F7 and F9.  I have tried to work it so that I do a 'wordy' paper alongside a 'numbers' paper.

Study in a way which suits you.  There are various different course providers, all offering different study methods such as classroom learning or distance learning, tuition course, revision courses and question based days or QBDs.  I need a classroom situation as I do not have the discipline to self study.  If you choose classroom study but can only attend 1 block of classes I would suggest the revisions blocks, I am sure that I learn more on these than I do on the tuition blocks.

Revise as little or as much as you know you need to do.  I was advised to create a study plan once revision courses started.  Work out how many weeks or days to the exams and decide how many questions you are going to attempt in each of your home study sessions.  I didn't do this.  I also listened to others in my group saying that they were doing 3 hours revision every night and 6 hours each day at weekends.  If this works for you then go for it, I personally think that this is too much, particularly if you are working full time as well.  I won't embarrass myself by saying how much revision I did, but it worked for me.

Don't put too much pressure on yourself.  Unless your contract states that you cannot have more than a certain number of resits, you have 10 years to complete a maximum of 14 exams for which there are currently 2 sittings each year.

But most of all, enjoy your studies, I actually looked forward to classes more than work sometimes!