As the sun sets on another school year, some students in secondary education find themselves reaching the end of one important stage in their lives, and eagerly begin to look forward to the next one. Those who are fighting their way through their final GCSE exams will no doubt be optimistic about moving onto their studies at college or sixth-form; and those leaving that level of study will in turn be already letting themselves get excited about the move onto university or the world of work.

However, this doesn’t mean that those who aren’t reaching one of these milestones shouldn’t have good reason to think about their futures. In particular, if you’re reaching the end of Year 12 of the first year of AS/A2 right now, it may be tempting to think that the upcoming summer break will simply be a question of downing tools for a few months, with more of the same to follow from September.

And while you’d be right in the sense that the day to day of the next academic year will be quite similar to the last one–if a little more stressful due to it being your final year at the secondary level–this doesn’t mean by any stretch that it’s not worth looking towards the future. Because while your next move may be more than a year away, you’ll be a whole lot more ready for it if you start putting in the planning for it now.

If anything, the summer between your penultimate year in secondary education and your final one is probably even more important than the one you’ll enjoy when you finish those final exams a year from now. Why? Because if you look into your future now you’ll be prepared to make good, informed decisions; if you just leave things until the last minute you’ll probably discover that the place on your dream course is already full, or that you should have applied for that great training scheme three months ago.

So, if you’re looking ahead to your final year of school or college, you should definitely also be looking beyond that as well, and in particular asking yourself these questions:

University, training or work?

This is the basic question you should be addressing now, rather than heading into the next year without a clear idea. This is not just because you’ll feel all at sea while your friends are talking about getting UCAS statements ready when you’d not even thought about university until that point, but also because if you don’t have an answer to this question months before you leave college or school the chances are you’ll miss the pick of the opportunities from any of these options and just end up with the scraps.

Where should I be doing this?

This is the next logical question to ask yourself. And by ‘where’ we’re not just speaking geographically. If you’ve decided on university, you’ll need to think about both what course to study and at which universities; if you’re thinking about work or training, it’s likely you’ll be staying closer to home, but you’ll still need to decide exactly what industry or field you want to be in, and in turn what options there are for it in your area.

How can I prepare for it?

This is the question that many people forget to answer. It’s all very well and good having a set idea about what you want to do, but if you don’t have a clear idea of how to turn that idea into reality–whether that’ll be through getting accepted onto a course by virtue of having the right work experience, or getting your CV and cover letter ready in time for application deadlines–then ultimately you’ll still end up in the same place as those who’d made no plans at all, only it’ll be even more frustrating for you–at least those who didn’t make any plans didn’t have any expectations! So once you’ve decided what you want to do, get researching the practicalities of how to get yourself on the right track to do it.