Hello:) I'm a grade 10 student too, I'm currently taking French, English, grade 11 functions all at a pre-IB level and Civics/Careers, however last semester I tool grade ten math, science, history, and art. So here's what I would recommend:
English-I don't find English a difficult course whatsoever even though it's not my favourite it's one of my highest grades. So anyways to succeed in English ask a lot of questions for my class we're doing Macbeth, To Kill A Mockingbird and one more Shakespeare play that I forget...we read Shakespeare together in class and so the easiest thing to do is if you don't know what's going on in the novel is to ask for clarification and take notes from each scene. I also recommend looking at inline chapter summaries for any book you're reading but don't understand it helps a lot! For writing essays start as soon as you can. Be sure to have a perfect format and edit it many times over! (I edit my essays and get other people to edit my essays like 6 times over and I've never gotten a grade below 93% on them). So overall reread if you need to, ask for help, and always check grammar on everything you do as this is actually worth a lot in written work.
Math- Math's my favourite subject, although not my strongest but from grade 10 math last semester to grade 11 functions this semester I've improved, I have the same math teacher for both because I'm in IB and our grades were to drop a whooping 30%! But luckily I've worked hard and actually brought my grades up:) so my recommendations for this course is to not only do the questions assigned in class but extra questions as well, this allows you to get a deeper understanding and more practice which is vital in this course, you'll be sure to see a huge difference! Oh and word of advice don't just do easier extra questions try the tough ones too or you'll never get better. In grade 10 math I remember taking many notes and for that I'd say re-write them and make them into a nice booklet you can use for the exam to study from, include lots of examples! Redo your tests about a week or two after you get them back so that by the time you have an exam it won't all be forgotten and a huge mess of trying to re teach it all to yourself. This has helped me so much! I went from a 74% in grade 10 math to a 84% in Functions which is much more difficult especially since it's at the international baccalaureate level, we literally learn something new everyday.
Science- Science is pretty mediocre for me, don't mind it en get alright grades. However since in grade 10 science you learn physics, chemistry and biology. Biology is English based, chemistry is comprehension&listening skills based and physics is obviously math based. Chemistry is a lot of memorization but is probably the simplest of the three, take good notes and refer back to the textbook for it. Biology is a lot of written work and diagrams I found. Really take the time to learn what you are taught in the biology unit. Physics by far the toughest unit...I found the actual math part simple but all the mirrors stuff was difficult so be sure to take really thorough notes and really pay attention to your teacher what's being taught.
History- Oh history, I hate you with a passion. But I'm good at you;) so the main thing about history is all the memorization! It was kind of ridiculous, I swear for that course we memorized dates and terms more than actually being taught what happened. It can be a pretty dull course but try to make it interesting by studying in fun ways! Also use acronyms to help you memorize and write point form notes in class peoples' names, dates and term meanings, you'll thank me;)
French- I'm taking this course currently and excelling, I plan to take it all throughout high school. Grade 10 is a lot of verb tenses, we already knew three or four last year and now we know 6 or 7. It's really important to memorize these if you want to succeed, especially work on -ir verbs as there endings are harder to memorize. I like to use flash cards to work on this:) Use as much french as possible in the course. In my class we constantly have to speak it and we learn a lot faster this way, it really helps communication wise! In my course a huge chunk of our grade is for oral communication and we even have an oral for a large chunk of our final exam, so yeah very important. When you have to do a presentation to the class practice out loud to yourself many times. this will help substantially and you'll notice your grade will go up. I like to study for french last minute and most people would recommend not doing so but I think it's the best way because it leaves it fresh in your mind.
If you need any help in these courses please feel free to pm or email me at
kelseyklippenstein@yahoo.com I can help you if you would like since I'm also a grade 10 student and doing/did fairly well in these courses:) I hope I helped you even in the slightest bit!