As an A level Art student you have far more freedom to explore and develop your technical ability as well as your creativity with ideas. This freedom was clear at the start of Year 12, when I undertook a project titled “A Sense of Place” that enabled me to experiment and use media I would not normally have used, such as clay and porcelain, as well as plaster for the casting work. I also painted on a scale that I’d never done before, using eight sheets of A1 to create large-scale works of art. Working outside my comfort zone gave me much more confidence in my art. After the “A Sense of Place” project, we began our ‘Personal Investigations’. This is a project which is worth 60% of the final grade, where you choose a topic and explore it for around a year. I’ve been able to take the skills I have developed in the “A Sense of Place” to explore my chosen subject, which is military post-traumatic stress disorder. The skills I’ve gained through studying Art A level have set me up well for doing a Fine Art degree at Central Saint Martins art school in London, and I feel I have the confidence to deal with the way in which universities teach creative subjects.