The final countdown is on

As you approach the end of term, your internal school assessments are wrapping up and the final countdown to graduation is on 👩🏻‍🎓. But before we get too carried away with celebrations and turn our brains off for the rest of the year, you have to remember that these next couple of weeks are still important and here’s how you can make the most of them:

1. Share, share, share

Now that internal assessments are over and your individual rank has been secured, now is the time to start thinking about how you’re going to lift your year group as a whole. There’s usually a real shift in year 12 at this point in the term because you can now remove all the competitiveness and start thinking about how the other people in your year can help your ATAR and how you can help theirs. Simple things like sharing notes or sharing 20/20 essays around, having class discussions or FAQ sessions to push some critical thinking and even doing a few group study days to get everyone up to scratch can make a huge difference.

2. Don’t wave goodbye to your teachers just yet

Remember, this is the last few weeks to be in class with your teachers. This is the time to pick their brains, use their marking abilities and their knowledge to your advantage. While some of you may be cheering at the idea that this will be the last time in a room with your teachers (tsk tsk), remember to take advantage of how they can help you push your marks up, secure your understanding of the content and guide you in your study routine for the next month.

3. Maintaining motivation

After a big exam period that slowly eats away at your sanity, it’s only fair that you take some time off and let your brain recover. This much needed break can be a little risky though because you get a taste of what life is like without studying and it’s always 10x harder getting back into it. But don’t stress if you find that you can’t study as hard as you did during the term, instead spend your time focusing on other factors that will help you in your external exams. Things like making the most out of your teacher’s feedback, getting into a good routine that in maintainable over the next 2 months and getting yourself ready to gradually increase the studying as we get closer to the exams.

4. Plan your time and be organised

This is the time to create a study timetable and give yourself some deadlines. 2 months may seem like a lot of time, but with graduation (and for some you: school formals) in the middle time will fly by and before you know it you’ll be sitting English Paper 1 wondering where all your time went. So, let’s try and save future you from having a meltdown by setting some realistic study goals and deadlines. This way you can consistently keep on top of your work and still have time to have a social life in the next few weeks.

5. Actually enjoy the next few weeks

Graduation, saying goodbye to teachers, muck-up day, last days in your uniform… the end of school is a great time. Even though the stress of the ATAR is still somewhere in the back of your mind don’t forget about the good times of being in year 12 right now. So if you want to put off study for your graduation week, or maybe lock in a bunch of celebratory events with your friends then do it! You’ve worked hard for basically a full year now and you’ve definitely earned the right to really enjoy the end of school.

Just… try not to do anything too crazy. Thanks. 👌