Two things worth a sixth-former's time this month.

Free, real, and open to any student in the country. We check the dates against the organiser's own page rather than a listing, so if something here has moved, that page is the one to trust. Nothing on this page asks you for anything.


Closes 6 November.

The Royal Geographical Society's Young Geographer of the Year is open to both sixth-form years: one piece of work on a set theme, and the winning entries are published. Closes in early November.

Free to enter, open to both sixth-form years, and the winning entries get published. One piece of work on a set theme, closing in early November — read last year’s winners before deciding what to make.


And one to do, not attend

Every stretch of the coast of England and Wales has already been sorted into one of four categories, and one of the four means it will not be defended. The plans are public, they name villages, and almost nobody reads them. Find the stretch nearest you and see which of the four words it got.

An hour, free, and a primary source rather than a summary of one. Shoreline management plans read like planning documents because that is what they are; the skill is finding the sentence that names a place and a date. Somebody decided about your bit of coast.


This page shows everyone the same two things, which is the whole difference between it and what we actually do. A broadcast about law is noise to a student taking psychology, film and computing; the useful version is the one thing a week that fits the subjects they are actually sitting.

And a page cannot ask them what they made of it. Two or three sentences, written a fortnight later while it is still fresh, is what turns an afternoon into something they can put in a personal statement eighteen months on — and it is the part nobody does on their own.