“I’ll get by with a little help from my friends” -The Beatles

It’s reaching the end of term one and already, you’re getting sick.  Obviously, you’ve been so busy stressing over all the co-curricular groups that you’re part of, as well as keeping your studying up-to-date that you’ve forgotten to care for your body.  The life of a student can be a hard one, we all know that.  Each teacher thinks that his or her subject is the more important one, and piles on the work load.  He doesn’t realise that his students have at least three other subjects to work on too.

Your parents might tell you that you need to pull out of some of your activities.  I know this is one of the worst things to be told.  Who wants to have to drop out of a group when you have so much fun participating in it?  I’m not going to tell you that the only way to survive the stress of school is to leave one of the groups, because it’s not.  I think that the best chance you have is by getting a little help from your friends – your good friends.

The saying “quality is better than quantity” definitely works in this situation.  You may have 100 friends and be the most popular kid in school, but how many of those people can you really rely on?  How many can you tell your deepest secrets to?  It is the people that you can trust completely that will help you out the most at school.

I’m House Captain for Batten and I’m part of a lot of other groups. I don’t have any spare lunch times and I’m often busy after school.  It’s hard for me to catch up with my good friends, but as soon as I get to have a chat with them, I can always tell a difference.  They’re the people who you can have a good old moan to or get extremely excited about the smallest things with and they won’t judge you either way.  More seriously, though, your friends keep you grounded.  They let you know when you’re being too harsh or when you need to lighten up a bit; they let you know when you’re being a ’pushover’ and you need to stand up for yourself more; heck, they can even help you out with sorting out which thing on your “To-do list” needs to be your top priority .

So, if you’re struggling with the stresses of school, try and make some time to hang out with your friends.  Even if it is only for five minutes while you walk to the next class, it is worth it!  Friends make your whole time at school so much better – enjoy them while they’re around… it’s not worth losing them.

By Lianne Mellin. Edited by Keniel Yao.