Middle Years

Exams are a learning ground

With exams approaching next week, it's natural for students to feel nervous and a little concerned. But the flip side to this is that there is also a genuine excitement (often hidden) about the chance to become good at exams themselves.

Unlike the higher-stakes assessments that come later in secondary school, such as VCE exams, middle years exams are the perfect lower-pressure environment to experiment, reflect, and build skills that will pay off for years to come.

Exams are a skill 

We don't expect students to pick up a musical instrument and perform it flawlessly the first time. The same logic applies to sitting exams. Reading questions carefully, managing time across a paper, knowing when to move on from a tricky question, handling nerves — these are all learnable skills, and your child is at exactly the right stage to start developing them.

I encourage students to approach these upcoming exams with curiosity: What works for me? What doesn't? What would I do differently next time? That kind of reflective thinking is far more valuable to a Middle Years student than a perfect score.

Experimenting with revision techniques

One of the best things your child can do right now is treat revision itself as an experiment. Research consistently shows that some of the most popular study habits — like re-reading notes or highlighting — are among the least effective. Here are a few approaches worth trying:

Practice retrieval (testing yourself).Rather than reading over material, students close their notes and write down everything they can remember. This feels harder — and that's the point. The effort of retrieving information strengthens memory far more than passive review.

Spaced practice.Instead of cramming one subject for three hours, try shorter sessions spread across several days. Returning to material after a break helps it stick. Even 20–30 minutes of focused revision per subject, revisited across the week, beats a single marathon session.

The Feynman Technique students explain a topic as if they were teaching it to a younger student (or to you!). Gaps in understanding become immediately obvious — and explaining something clearly is one of the surest signs of genuine knowledge.

Past tests and timed practice use past tests under realistic conditions — timed, at a desk, without distractions. Afterwards, go through mistakes together, not to judge, but to understand why an answer was wrong and what the question was really asking.

What to do with the results

When results come back, the most valuable thing isn't the mark itself — it's what students do with the feedback. Help them ask:

• Which topics did I know well? Which ones surprised me?
• Did I run out of time, or did I finish early and rush?
• Were there questions I misread or misunderstood?
• What would I revise differently next time?

Teachers are also excellent resources. I encourage students to speak with their teacher about any areas they found difficult — in the middle years, that kind of proactive conversation is a wonderful habit to build.

With the mid-year exams, let's celebrate the effort, the experimentation, and the learning — whatever the score on the page.