HIGH ACHIEVERS ASSEMBLY

Yesterday we celebrated and acknowledged the incredible achievements of our high achieving students of 2023, who achieved an ATAR score of 90+ and a study score above 40 in each VCE subject. 

Kohen our Dux of College and Ethan (our second highest ATAR scoring student) shared a few words with us outlining what helped them through their secondary schooling.

Kohen | Dux of College

To start off, what you learn in subjects is not just the knowledge that’s specific to it, but it’s more importantly the process of thinking, that’s aligned to the way you solve problems, and develop, in the subject. For example, English with its conceptual and analytical thinking, and most humanities with evaluating many factors and aspects, and making judgements in a holistic manner. 

Any subject you learn gives you a lens to which you can see the world in a clearer, more detailed way. They’ll focus on different aspects of our life, but once you have that lens, without it, would make you feel as though you’re looking through some sea glass. 

As long as you don’t give up on holding curiosity, trying to understand why things are the way they are, what would initially feel like just a bunch of small, disjointed things that won’t help you in life, you’ll start to find links across your knowledge and gain a unified, more general view of the study. Then, learning new things would no longer be a pain and would feel more like you’re just realising new things, as though you already had it in your mind, making sense. That’s the key to acquiring a skill, to explain and find out, new things, as opposed to merely becoming, a storage of knowledge.

To conclude, I would like to say thank you to the school, which offered me lots of opportunities, to accelerate, and strive for higher, as well as to those teachers who demonstrated to me that what they teach is interesting, and also those who trusted me to do whatever I needed during class. And more importantly, thank you so much to all my friends I made at this school, who spent my high school life with me, whether that be just near the end, or for the full six years, you’re by far, what made school the most fun, and I hope I’ll stay in touch with you wherever we all go. 

Ethan

I will share my experiences last year, how to get the most out of school and some advice to succeed in your classes.

I’d like to start off by saying that my last year at Brighton was quite enjoyable. I had only 4 classes which meant I had a lot of free periods each week, I had teachers who I could tell really cared and wanted the best for their students and I had friends who challenged me to push my limits. I had a nice balance of work, study and exercise, which meant that I could keep up with schoolwork easier since I was in the right frame of mind most of the time. Keeping up with schoolwork meant that I could spend almost every single evening playing online games with friends, which I used as a kind of reward for a good day’s work. Not every moment was great, as with your final year of VCE comes a lot of pressure and that can be stressful sometimes, but looking back at my final year I think I can pinpoint a couple things that can really help students better navigate not only their final year of school, but also just school in general.

The most important thing to navigate school easier is to have a vision or a goal of what you would like to achieve in school. Whether that’s passing each assessment task, getting a particular ATAR, making a difference in the school community, participating in music performances, representing Brighton in interschool sport, helping your peers and younger year levels or a combination of all of these and more, understanding your vision and then working out what you need to do to get there is so, so important. My personal vision was getting an ATAR of over 99, so I went online and used ATAR calculators to see what scores I needed for my subjects. Then it was only a matter of speaking to teachers and friends to find out what amount of effort I would have to put in to get those scores and I did that. Having this clear idea of what I wanted to achieve at school meant that I took the subjects I needed to do and only the subjects I needed to do, which is how I ended up with just 4 subjects in my last year. I want to stress that an ATAR does not have to be your final goal at the end of high school though. Since it is important for getting into courses in university, it may be a part of many people’s goals for school, but before, I listed quite a number of different opportunities Brighton gives us students and depending on who you are, you will get more fulfilment from different achievements. The main thing is to stay focused towards your vision as that will give you the motivation and drive to put in the work and succeed.

Now the question is, what if you don’t know what you want to get out of school? What if that vision is unclear? My answer is to try different things. Put yourself out there. You will never know what you want to do or are able to do unless you try. Use these opportunities to explore what gives you joy because after high school it might be much more difficult to find such opportunities. 

To end, I would like to touch on some tips for getting the most out of your school classes. First is to be smart about how you get help from teachers. If you get stuck or confused don’t immediately ask for help – take a couple minutes to try to figure it out yourself first. The best way to learn is to struggle with something and solve it on your own. Then if you’re still having trouble, make sure you ask either friends or the teacher and work it out. I’ve seen too many students be too embarrassed to ask the teacher for help, but getting past this and realizing that’s what the teacher is there for is really important. Questions or topics that you find difficult are a golden opportunity to learn something new, so leaving a question unanswered or a topic not understood is a big waste. My other tip is to note-take effectively. This topic could have a 5 hour seminar dedicated to it, but in the end I believe that the best way to figure out how to note-take effectively is to try different methods. It sounds simple, but try writing dot points. Try drawing diagrams. Try using different colors. Note-taking is super important if you want studying for a test or SAC to become way easier, so don’t be afraid to keep trying different methods until you stumble across a way that works for you.

I wish you all the best for the rest of your schooling and the future, and I hope that you were able to take something useful out of this.

High Achievers