Senior School News

June 2018

Well, time has moved quickly by, as we approach the end of Unit’s 1 & 3. Students should be starting preparations for exams, which will be held in Week 8 for Year 12’s and Week 7 for Year 11’s. The General Achievement Test (GAT) is compulsory for all students studying Unit 3/4 subjects. This will be held on Wednesday 13th June. The exam is important in the case of a derived score being needed. The 3 hour exam will be held in A block. Previous exams are available on compass for students to practise. Students have been briefed and preparation time provided for them. More information is available from http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/exams/gat/index.aspx

Mrs. Cutajar has begun working with Year 12 Homegroups to provide information to students for the process of applying for tertiary courses. This will be further support by the excursion to Vic Uni Footscray on the 19th July. Cost is $ 10.

I Belong 2018 Ready Set Design- RMIT

RMIT’s I Belong programs give students from our Schools Network Access Program (SNAP) partner schools the chance to explore our campuses and discover what life as a university student is all about. We invite Year 11 and 12 students who are interested in a career in design to visit RMIT’s City campus and discover tools and strategies to support your preparation and transition to tertiary education.

What is Ready Set Design? Now in its seventh year, Ready Set Design is a series of three workshops for VCE students where you can learn about careers and tertiary programs in design, develop your folio, and practice your interview and presentation skills. Workshops are held during the April, June and September school holidays. We recommend that you attend all three sessions to get the most out Ready Set Design.

Workshop #2: Folio Bytes (June) A hands-on workshop exploring folio development in different areas of design. Workshops will focus on specific areas of design, and you can choose the one that best suits your interests.

Workshop #3: Interview Bytes (September) Discover what to expect in a design interview, and practice your folio presentation skills.

All workshops are held at RMIT’s City campus.  How to register —visit https://rmitsnapevents.eventbrite.com.au  —select the event/s you wish to register for —click ‘register’ and provide your details. You will receive an email confirmation immediately after registering.

Registrations will open several weeks before each workshop. If you register for one Ready Set Design workshop, you will be notified when registrations open for each following workshop.

Day of Immunology

Rebecca, Sana, Abdul and Ms Narayan-Butler attended the Peter Doherty Centre in Parkville, to listen to a range of speakers talking on the immune system. They heard from: Professor Robyn O'Hehir, Monash University: "Epidemic Thunderstorm Asthma: averting another strike with allergen immunotherapy".

Professor Tom Kay, St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research: "Treatment of juvenile diabetes without insulin injections" and

Doctor Shahneen Sandhu, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre: "Immunotherapy: Shifting Paradigms of Cancer Treatment". It was very inspiring and provided them all with the amazing future ahead in terms of research and potential treatments.

Morning Tea 

Our fortnightly get togethers to share food have been well received (as you can imagine!) we have gathered together on Friday’s to socialise and enjoy the delicious spread put on by each class. Students have shown much initiative in setting up and cleaning up, ably assisted by our School captains. Well done everyone.

Self Service Cupboard

Thanks to Emily Ruzanji, Mrs.McCullogh, KSC Staff and all the other very kind people who have donated items to our cupboard. The Year 12’s have expressed their gratitude to all. As we approach winter, items to make soup using our slow cookers would be gratefully received.

Free Unit 3 Revision Lectures

The Australian Catholic Uni is providing free lectures for Unit 3 English, Further Maths and Maths Methods at the Melton Library.

WHAT IS INCLUDED? • Two hour workshops. • Workshops are delivered by highly experienced teachers with an in-depth knowledge of the curriculum. • Participants will be guided through a revision of the content delivered in Unit 3 and receive study tips and advice in preparation for Unit 4. • Each participant will receive a set of study notes. • Lunch is provided on location.

All this is offered at no cost to participants. So I highly recommend that students register.

Register online at www.acu.edu.au/vhwreg

Also: Free lectures in Unit 3 biology, English, chemistry, further, methods, physics, and psychology at Melbourne University Parkville. Register at:  http://go.unimelb.edu.au/oov6

Study Tip

Do you read your notes or text-books silently to yourself or do you re-write materials as part of your learning process?

Did you know that both of these techniques are the most ineffective and time-consuming means of committing knowledge to memory? Yet these techniques are the most common strategies used by students to commit knowledge to memory!!!

Re-writing and/or reading silently are simple tasks that do not engage many zones in your brain. It is therefore easy to stray or think about unrelated matters – impairing the amount of information that can be input to memory.

As an example, whilst reading a book, have you ever reached the bottom of a page and asked yourself:

"What did I just read?"

So what is the easiest and most effective way of committing knowledge to memory?

By Reading Out Loud!

 A more powerful technique involves teaching someone or something! By teaching or vocalising what you are learning in your own words, you will very quickly realise what you do and do not know - and you will be committing knowledge to memory at the same time.

Learning in this manner will decrease study time by at least 8 fold.

This also means that you will commit 8 times more information to memory in any set period of time!

You will also find that this technique will improve how much you understand and remember, how much you recall, as well as how effectively you are able to apply and extend your knowledge; which is highly important in answering analysis questions as well as worded applications.