Learning  

WELCOME BACK TO TERM 4

Dear Parents /Guardians,

It feels like only yesterday that we welcomed the beginning of the 2022 school term and here we are, only a few days away from sending our Year 12s into their final preparation for exams. 

VCE Trial Exams 

Many of our Year 11 and Year 12 students returned to school over the school holidays to undertake Trial Exams.  These exams provide students with an invaluable opportunity that will inform their approach to the actual exams.  Thank-you to families for your support of this process and to the students who engaged with Trial Exams in a positive and focused manner. 

I would like to acknowledge the tremendous amount of work that our Learning Administration Leader, John Andritsos, and our Daily Organiser, Pina Nicolazzo have done to ensure the smooth running of these events. 

Exam Preparation

As formal classes finish for Year 12s, students begin the final push before exams.  While structured classes will not run this week, students completing exams are encouraged to keep regular contact with their teachers to help guide their preparation and revision. 

I know that parents of our senior students are very keen to support their daughters to be productive in their revision.  One area of focus for Professional Development here at the College this year has been on the principles of ‘Retrieval Practice’.  While we tend to think that learning happens as information is going ‘in’ to the brain, there is much research to suggest that much of our learning occurs when we pull learning ‘out’ of our brains Unleash Learning LLC 2022, Retrieval Practice.Org, viewed 12 October 2022

This is because the effort of the recall practice helps to strengthen a learner’s memory. 

This means that we must encourage students to harness strategies that help them to ‘retrieve’ what they have learned.   Here are 4 simple retrieval practice strategies that we are experimenting with here at Academy and encouraging our students to use:

• Creating flash cards to assist with common language, definitions and key knowledge;
• Explain a concept to a peer or a parent;
• Brain dump: where students take a fresh piece of paper and write down everything they recall about a particular area of study (checking for accuracy after the fact is very important in this strategy being successful); 
• Take practice tests and quizzes. These can be tests that students create for themselves and/or swap with a peer.  The key here is that they are a low stakes opportunity for a student to establish what knowledge is consolidated and what they still need to work on.

The growing body of knowledge around effective learning provides us with tangible ways to empower students to understand how they learn best.  Perhaps most importantly, all the research acknowledges that learning takes effort, and persistence.  Perhaps this advice, more than any other, is most pertinent for students about to embark on the final weeks of study.   Sophocles was clearly ahead of his time when he advised that, ‘without labour, nothing prospers’. 

We wish the graduating class of 2022 all the very best in the coming weeks and beyond. It has been my great pleasure and privilege to work with your daughters and I wish them every success with their future endeavours.

Ms Fiona Lennon

Deputy Principal, Learning & Teaching