We are now into the last few weeks of work for our Year 12s. Next week trial examinations are being held and the exams will be held in the Chapel each day. The first session starts at 8.45am and the second session starts at 1.15pm and the exam timetable can be found through SEQTA.

There are no examinations on Friday and Year 12 students are not expected to be at school – they can use this valuable time for their investigations, assignments and special studies that will be due very soon. Students who do not have examinations throughout this period are encouraged to come in and see their teachers to ensure that their projects are up to date.

The final Study Skills session through Elevate Education called ‘The Finishing Line’ will be offered on Friday September 14. This session will concentrate on overcoming weaknesses in the lead up to exams, the role of exam study groups, stress management techniques and study routines for swotvac and the holidays.

Deciding on subjects for 2019 has been a challenging process for some, so I wanted to say thank you for working with us in getting selections in. The next stage of the process is for us to look at all the subject choices that students have indicated they would like to study and then to make it all fit into our structures. There may be some calls that I will need to make as I cannot guarantee that everyone will get their selections for 2019.

Year 12 study info session with Year 11s

Hudson Laycock and some fellow Year 12 students offered subject and study advice to the Year 11s in Rosevear Boarding House before subject selections for 2019 were submitted. The Year 12s offered their advice, shared their experiences and tips on how to be successful in your final Scotch year.

Some of the Year 11 feedback comments included:

“It was great to hear about how to successfully study different year 12 subjects from our peers, I felt it gave us a real insight to what year 12 is going to be like”

“We enjoyed talking to the Year 12s, and got advice that made sense”

“Thanks to the Year 12s for spending time talking with us about their experiences and how to survive Year 12.”

Science News

A huge thank you to our Head of Science, Michelle McGrath and Owen Osborne for getting together a series of events for our students to celebrate National Science Week. A variety of lunchtime activities were held in week 4 with the theme of Australian Game Changers with experiments based on Australian inventions: photo lithography paper experiment, digeridoo sound experiment and electrostatic charge experiment. A Scinema Film Festival with nine short Science films shown in the Lecture Theatre, with many students in attendance.

To give our students exposure to industry standard equipment, this week we hired a Hitachi electron microscope from a local company Newspec. Science and Agriculture classes have rotated through a lesson with the electron microscope, with students spending time setting up samples and viewing the incredibly small details up to 10000x magnification. Our sample tests have included insect eyes, wings and legs, microchips and circuitry, optic fibre cables, differing metal stages of rust (oxidation), plus CD and DVD and Vinyl record tracks, diffraction gratings, different wool types, soil, hay and seed samples. Students and teachers were very interested in this insight into the microworld around us.

Teresa Hanel
Deputy Principal – Teaching and Learning