Leader of Teaching & Learning
Thank you to the parents and students who attended Parent Teacher Student conferences. These evenings are important opportunities to have personalised feedback. I encourage all students to implement the suggestions next term.
For Year 12, these holidays should be a time of focus and study. There are many resources available in the College Library. For exmaple, NESA publish workbooks for a range of subjects that include exemplar responses, we have a wide selection of revision guides and past HSC papers. Many teachers have offered to avail themselves for study sessions, Mrs Martin and Mrs Barrett have promoted online lectures with the universities in which students may enrol. Year 12, resist the temptation to accept extra shifts and allow yourself the time to consolidate and prepare for the Trial HSC examinations.
Taste of TAFE
You may have seen on our social media page and in the Careers section of this newsletter that we took interested students from Years 9 -11 to a Taste of TAFE day last Wednesday. McCarthy students were exceptionally well mannered and engaged. This commenced the first of many opportunities for Year 10 students to begin to gather information and prepare for choosing subjects in Year 11 2020. The timeline of events is as follows:
Week 1
Year 10 students will attend the Ski Trip.
Week 2
Monday 29 July
6:00pm - 7:00pm SBAT and TVET information night
(Year 9 students are also welcome to attend).
Held in Our Lady of the Rosary Cultural Centre.
Weeks 2-4
During Wednesday's APC lessons, students will hear presentations from Leaders of Learning in each Faculty.
Week 4
Wednesday 21 August
5:00pm - 6:00pm UAC (Universities Admissions Centre) will present information relating to ATAR which will help clarify pathways and options for Year 11 2020. Held in Our Lady of the Rosary Cultural Centre. Following this presentation, on the same evening:
Wednesday 21 August
6:15pm - 7:00pm Year 11 2020 Subject Selection Information Evening
Held in Our Lady of the Rosary Cultural Centre.
I look forward to seeing you next term, have a restful holiday.
STUDY SKILLS TIP FOR JULY: TOP TIPS FOR OVER COMMITTED STUDENTS
Maybe you are an elite athlete? Or a dedicated performer? Or someone who has many talents across many different areas and doesn’t want to give up any activities? No matter the reason, the bottom line is you are time poor. You struggle to fit in everything you need to do for school, because of all of the other commitments in your life. The bad news is there is no magic solution that will easily fix this issue for you. You cannot create more time. The good news is that there are things you can do to make more efficient use of the time you have.
These tips are an abbreviated version of the handout available on www.studyskillshandbook.com.au - just visit the Things To Print page to see the full version.
- Don’t waste time in any of your classes at school. Make the most of every moment so you have less to do at home and set up a buddy system in case you miss any lessons.
- Prune your activities and see if there is anything you can cut to reduce the pressure.
- Make a timetable so you can schedule in everything that you need to do and want to do.
- Use all little pockets of time. If you are waiting before training then use that time to complete some homework.
- Always prioritise before you start work to ensure that the most important and urgent work is completed first.
- If you are too tired when you get home from training it may be better to get to bed early and get up a bit earlier in the morning when you are fresh and do your work then.
- You may need to sacrifice an occasional lunchtime when you know you will be too busy that night.
- Let go of perfectionism it may not be possible to do everything as fully as you would like. Take smart shortcuts when you can.
- Use any big blocks of time to tackle the time-consuming tasks that you haven’t had time for.
- Some work like study notes, assessments or major works may be able to be left to the holidays.