With the Trial Exams only 81 days away (for 90% of our students) it’s very important that Year 12 students are making progress with their Trials preparation now to ensure they don’t get overwhelmed with the volume of content that will be examined in the Trials.
It’s easy for students to be lulled into a false sense of security by only focusing on the current topics and assessment tasks, thinking that Trials and the HSC exams are ‘later in the year’ but I don’t classify 81 days as ‘later in the year’.
Of course it’s important to make progress on the current topics and deal with the next assessment task, however if we ignore the fact that ALL topics completed in Year 12 will be examined in just 81 days, it’s highly likely that panic and feelings of being overwhelmed will ensue.
The good news is that it doesn’t take much to keep the brain fired and wired on completed topics. In just 15 minutes a day students can build certainty and maintain brain connections and pathways allowing them to stay in control of the process. We highly recommend topic mind maps from memory (5 minutes per topic), English quote write outs from memory (around 3 minutes per text) and for Maths, just one or two questions.
This week I have spoken to some students who indicated they haven’t looked at a number of topics since finishing the topic in Term 4. How much do they want to do some revision on these older topics? Not much at all, but a series of 5 minute mind maps from memory can easily be squeezed into even the busiest schedule and will have significant pay off in 60 days time (the middle of the June/July break from school).
In every session between now and Trial Exams our students will be completing at least one mind map from memory and writing out English quotes from memory to help students build the momentum we need. We have been doing these kind of tasks since the start of the April break and we are seeing some students on fire with their quote write outs and syllabus mind maps and when asked how it feels they always respond with ‘it feels GOOD!’
For our Year 11 students, we are doing the same revision exercises as the Yearly exams will begin as early as late August and now is the time to be building the strong habits to set up for the start of HSC 2024 in October.
I’ve started a new Instagram account focused purely on motivation and getting students to finish their HSC with no regrets and it’s great to see some parents following as well. The instagram account is @hsc_jesseg if you wanted to follow.
Jesse GardinerHead Performance Coach
