Surviving the HSC

1. Surviving the HSC A guide for parents

2. What the research tells us: • Students who have parents who are actively involved, interested and supportive in their learning do better than those who don’t. • When parents are actively involved in the learning it becomes a partnership between the school and the family. • The student feels more at ease with their learning if the parent knows about what is happening. • Parents who have knowledge of their students subjects and requirements have the knowledge to monitor their student’s activities around school.

3. How do I get actively involved? • Get specific in your knowledge of what subjects your child studies and what is required. If you don’t know, ring their teacher, attend parent teacher night, or look through their assessment schedules and tasks. • Ask about assessment tasks – share a calendar with your HSC student on their phone so you know key dates for exams, tasks or homework. • Don’t ask if they have homework. They will say no. Instead say “your maths test is next week – would you like me to test you on some formulas?” OR “how are you going with that English task on Hamlet that is due in two weeks?”

4. How do I get actively involved cont? • Offer your help with specific things such as making flash cards, creating a study timetable, downloading and printing practice papers, going to the town library together, helping them browse the internet for extra reading. • Make talking about their learning a normal part of your day. Don’t ask “how was school?” instead ask “what did you learn in Biology today?” • Be active in your child’s learning. Look at their assessment tasks and the feedback and marks they received. Talk about what went wrong and how they could fix it for next time.

5. Help them create a balance • Make sure your students have a good balance of school, part time work, physical activity, social and family connections. • Encourage physical activity of some sort during the week. • Encourage time with friends (face to face not just on FB) • Encourage time with their immediate and extended family. • Encourage healthy eating and a good amount of sleep. • Encourage your child to reduce their screen time before sleep. F.lux is an app that changes the light of your child’s device to an appropriate level so that it doesn’t interfere with their sleep.

6. Clarity of Goals • The motivation to achieve a goal is directly related to the clarity of the goal. • For example “I want to go to University” isn’t quite clear enough and the motivation to succeed won’t be as strong. • “I want to complete an electrical engineering degree and need an ATAR of 84 at Newcastle or 89 at Sydney” is a far more clear and specific goal and likely to produce higher levels of motivation. • Encourage your child to explore all options. What will work for your child and your family? Uni, TAFE, apprenticeship, traineeship? • Myfuture.com and myfuture.edu.au are two excellent websites to help students clarify their career goals.

7. “I don’t know what I want to do?” • If your student is still having trouble deciding on their life beyond school ask them the following question: “If you had three free hours to do whatever you liked, what would you be doing?” If your child chooses a job, career or profession in a field they already like, they are more likely to be successful in their pursuit of that career.

8. Get goal specific - ask them to ask themselves these questions • What subjects do I need to choose or do well in for this career? • What do I need to get into this course? An ATAR? An interview? A portfolio of work? An HSC with Maths and English Band 5’s? Do I need to sit an examination external to the HSC? • If I allow for rising ATAR scores is this still a realistic goal? • Make the goal real and visual. Create a table with options for different levels of tertiary entrance. Include a variety of universities, TAFE, private colleges, apprentices, traineeships. • Get them to make motivational signs with attainable goals for their study space. Eg: ATAR = 80

9. Do study timetables work? • Yes, if they are realistic. • Rather than block in times for study, get them to block out times for their commitments. • In the free spaces ask them to allocate tasks rather then general subjects. Also encourage them to break tasks into parts.

10. Multi-tasking – does it work? • Students will tell you they are capable of studying, checking Facebook, posting on Instagram and playing an online game all at the same time - and they are, to an extent. • But when they need to concentrate on just their assessment task or their study, they need reduced distractions. • During their blocked out hours for school work they can try the following strategies to avoid procrastination and distraction: • “SelfControlapp” is a free app that lets students block their own access to distracting websites for a period of time. • “focusme” is another free app with two modes – Block mode and Focus mode. Block modes works in a similar way to SelfControl, but focus mode counts the hours you actually spend on websites or documents to give your child a realistic view of where their time is going. • Getcoldturkey is an app that blocks all distracting websites with no going back.

11. How does your child actually study?? • Research has discovered that there are more effective ways to study than others. Merely reading through their notes or endless summaries are not nearly as successful as the following: • Make notes actively • Practice papers • Extra reading

12. 1. Make notes actively • Use the syllabus in each subject to order and create notes. • Use headings and sub headings around the syllabus dot points • Create a study book for each subject and use different colours to highlight important key point, quotes or other information relvant to the syllabus. • Use bullet points from the syllabus down one side of the page and then use the other side to add in information from class discussions/class notes or extra reading relevant to that syllabus dot point. • Revise immediately. Make notes as soon as you can in your study book. Then add more to it the next day, the next week and the next month. Keep the study actice and current for each topic.

13. Practice Papers • Practice Papers have the biggest correlation back to high HSC results. • There are past papers from past HSC examinations in all subjects on the BOSTES website. Support your child by looking at them and downloading/printing them at home. If you can’t print them at home, help them save them and they can print them at school. • Do practice papers in a staggered way: • Open book in an open timeframe. Get feedback. • Closed book, open timeframe. Get feedback. • Closed book, closed timeframe. Get feedback. • Feedback from the classroom teacher on practice papers is one of the biggest effects on student success in the HSC. • Get your writing right!! You cannot convey anything without a well structured response.

14. 3. Extra Reading • Look for unique information that supports the syllabus • Hunt for more in depth facts • Look for quotes by an expert in the field and use them to support arguments or support counter arguments. • “Fresh and original answers” that respond to the syllabus is what HSC markers are looking for.

15. Where to go for more help? • Googlescholar has critical essays and articles on almost any topic you can name. • Khan academy • Elevateeducation.com • Brainscape.com has great flash cards on hundreds of topics • Anki is another site that helps students create their own effective flashcards.

16. Examination day • Have a good breakfast. Protein (eggs, meat, yoghurt) if possible to get you through long exams. • Put your notes away that morning. What you don’t know now you will never know. • Focus on what you do know. Revise key points in your head – talk out loud to a parent or sibling as if you are teaching them all you know. • Focus on breathing. Nice long deep breaths will get oxygen to the brain and wake you up for a morning exam. • Avoid talking to other students outside the exam room. If you do talk, don’t discuss the exam or how you feel. Make small talk.