Helping Students to Achieve

Helping students to achieve their best in 2020

Many parents and guardians will be familiar with the refrain “I don’t have any” when asking their child about homework to be completed. But for students to achieve their best, there is always something that can be done, and the start of the school year is a great time to set some routines and aim very high in all subjects.

To help students to achieve their best in 2020, staff at Rosehill are placing great emphasis on organisation and the effective use of time. During their induction day, we spoke with students about the homework requirements for their year level and showed them how to record details and due dates in their school diaries. Students should be taking their diaries home each night and ensuring all assigned tasks are completed before the due date. This gives students the opportunity to seek clarification or assistance if needed and still meet the due date requirements.

The homework and daily reading requirements for our students are shown below.

Homework should not be viewed only as completing tasks set by the teacher to do at home, or catching up on work not finished in class. Significant research about how the brain receives, processes and retains information has been published in recent years. For example, studies have found that we humans forget two thirds of what they learn within one day if there is no attempt to retain it; however with five spaced repetitions of the new information we can retain 95% of what we learn. Therefore, students who review their class notes at the end of each day (adding their own annotations or creating summaries of the information) and then review again on a regular basis are setting themselves up to do very well when the time comes to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the subject matter.

Reading on a daily basis is also recognised as one of the most important contributors to a student’s academic success. Reading is vital for building a child’s vocabulary and knowledge of language. And just like any life skill, we become better at it by doing it! See below for some interesting facts comparing reading practice and performance on standardised tests to understand why it is so important for your child to read each night.

Each week students and parents will receive a Compass post from our Curriculum Leader, Mr Bader, with study tips to help them become more effective learners. Look out for these and discuss with your child the next time they tell you they don’t have any homework to do tonight!

Frances Snow

Assistant Principal