Learning and Teaching News

End of Term 1 Exam Block

By the end of this week, students and parents will be emailed a copy of the Term 1 Exam Block. This exam block is for students in Year 7-10 and Year 12. 

Please note the details below:

• Year 12 exams will run from Tuesday 22 – Friday 25 March. Students will remain in normal timetabled classes on Monday 21 March. Year 12 students will go home when they are on exam block, attending campus only when they have an exam scheduled. Any student who has outstanding assessment/competencies will lose exam block privileges and will remain at school.
• Year 11 students will remain in normal timetabled classes throughout this time. Their exam block will run in Week 5 of Term 2 in line with the end of Unit 1.
• Year 10 exams will run as scheduled on the calendar from Friday 18 – Friday 25 March. Year 10 students will go home when they are on exam block, attending campus only when they have an exam scheduled. Any student who has outstanding assessment/competencies with lose exam block privileges and will remain at school.
• Year 7-9 exam block will continue to run as scheduled on the calendar from Friday 18 – Friday 25 March. Students will remain in classes over the exam block, only missing normal timetabled classes when they have an exam scheduled.

More information about the Year 7-9 and Year 12 exam blocks will be communicated over the coming weeks.

At the end of Term 3, students in Years 5-10 will receive an interim report card and students in Year 12 will receive a Unit 3 report. These will be accessible on Parent Lounge from the afternoon of Friday 1 April. 

Preparing for Exams 

By now, we hope that each and every young man at the college is busily preparing for their exams by enacting a routine study schedule. By planning small and regular reviews of content, students can “Overcome the [Forgetting] Curve” and use important information more readily:

SOURCE: http://www.mentormegate.com/wordpress/2014/06/10/mentor-me-gate-the-forgetting-curve/

This is particularly important for Mathematics – where students often forget how to attack certain problems they did earlier in the term. 

With 2-3 weeks before exam block, what should be boys be doing now to prepare and ensure they do not drop off the curve? Below are a couple of tips that may help to direct your study over the next week.

Cut out the fat from your revision

You can’t expect to revise all the desirable topics. You have to cut out the superfluous material and make sure that you can cover what is left. 

For essay-based subjects, it’s more about playing to your strengths and knowing where you feel capable of scoring marks. Make sure you are fully aware of the structure you need to write to and the key topics that need to be addressed.

For content exams, condense your classwork into basic facts. Maybe you learned in Biology how the heart pumps blood: take out the text and focus on the diagram and labels for chambers, valves etc. Anything unnecessary should be pushed aside because it’ll take up valuable mental space.

Whip up some flashcards

A good use of your time is writing flashcards. These are valuable because they force you to condense information to fit in a small area. Making flashcards means that all the information is in front of you, so you don’t have to waste time looking through a giant stack of notes. 

You can put questions on one side of the flashcard and answers on the other. You can draw miniature diagrams as well, such as the water cycle for Geography or a distillation set-up for Chemistry. Flashcards are particularly good for writing out facts or quotes that you need to drill into your head. It’s also wise to make them short, since there’s no use trying to commit paragraphs to memory.

Complete practice questions

Use your textbook, Moodle site, previous in-class questions or worksheets and revision quizzes to apply your knowledge. As you revise further, try and complete each question in an allocated period of time e.g. 1 minute per multiple-choice question or an introductory paragraph in 5 minutes. This will help you to perform under time pressure which is what happens when you reach the exam day.

A reminder to see your classroom teacher, PG teacher, Curriculum Leader or a member of the Academic Care Team if you would like to discuss your exam revision techniques further.

Study tips adapted from https://targetcareers.co.uk/careers-advice/revision-tips/385996-how-to-revise-for-exams-in-a-week

Middle School News

Maths Tutoring – Years 7-9

Maths tutoring will be available to all Year 7 to 9 students in the Resource Centre on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 3:15pm-4:15pm. These sessions will be aimed at supporting homework completion, working through skill sets that have not been understood and preparing for exams in Week 9. If you have any questions about this tutoring, please contact our Head of Mathematics Mrs Chrystal Frans (fransc@marash.qld.edu.au).

Academic Care Interviews

Over the course of the next two weeks, I will be holding academic care interviews with various students across Years 7-9.  I endeavour to meet as many boys as possible to discuss their academic progress, setting goals and discussing steps for success.

If I am not seeing your son this term and he has a particular concern, he is encouraged to come down to the studies office and book in a time with me.  He is also more than welcome to email me at rosenbergr@marash.qld.edu.au.

Thank you to those boys who have remembered their academic care interview. For those who have forgotten or were unable to attend due to COVID-19 or flooding, please email Inekah Moyles-Virtue to organise another time. 

Learning from Home

If you are unable to attend school due to COVID-19 or flooding (this week) please access your classwork via the Moodle subject page. If you are unsure of what work to complete or require further work, please contact your classroom teacher for guidance.

Literacy and Numeracy tests

Thank you to all boys across Years 7-9 who participated in the Literacy and Numeracy tests last week.  Results from these tests will be provided to students shortly.  If you were absent from school and were unable to complete these tests, please let me know and I can arrange a suitable time for you to complete these assessment tasks. 

Study Hall

Study Hall will begin again this week and will run the Resource Centre on Tuesday and Thursday morning from 7:45am-8:30am. Please note Thursday’s session is a repeat of Tuesday’s lesson. These sessions are open to all boys from Years 5-12. 

Please find below the outline for the Study Hall for the remainder of Term 1.