Year 10
Online HSC Minimum Standards Test
In 2016, the NSW Educational Standards Authority (NESA) announced that all HSC students would be required to demonstrate a minimum standard of Literacy and Numeracy before they could be awarded the HSC. You have recently been sent a letter from Mr David Randall, Dean of Academic Studies, explaining this process. Mr Randall also addressed the Year Group in assembly this week to inform the students that they will have an opportunity to do online practice tests starting next Friday and will sit the actual tests during the Yr 10 Examination block in Term 2. Although passing these tests is not a requirement of the IB, Redlands will be requiring all Yr 10 students to take them, regardless of whether they intend to select the HSC or IB for next year. Any questions, please direct them to drandall@redlands.nsw.edu.au. More information can be found here.
Study Skills Tip for March – Top Tips for Memorising Notes
Many students find it really difficult to cope with the memorisation that can be needed for examinations. Of course, you can’t just rote learn and regurgitate, you need to be able to apply the skills of what you have learnt. However, there is also a certain amount of memorisation of content, formulas and definitions that are necessary. So how can students make this process easier?
- Make your notes as brain-friendly as possible, point form, tables, diagrams and avoid big, long sentences or paragraphs.
- Start the memorisation process of your notes early and don’t wait until just before the test or examination.
- Memorisation involves testing yourself over and over and over and over. So read a section, then see what you can say or write down without looking. Then go back and see what you got wrong or didn’t know. Put a pencil mark next to these points.
- Now focus on the points you didn’t know. Say them out loud, repeat them to yourself, write them down a few times.
- Then test yourself on those points again and see if you remembered more this time.
- Do this over and over and over again. Then do it one more time again.
- Make flashcards or use a flashcard app on your phone to create flashcards on the parts you find hard to remember. Review these every day before the test.
- Make a list of the key concepts you find hard to learn and each night read through them just before you go to sleep and first thing when you wake up as these are powerful memory times.
- Engage in lots of practice questions and do this without looking at your notes or the answers to see if you can a) remember and b) apply the information. Review the areas that you did not remember again.
- Your job is to keep testing yourself in order to find out which points have not stuck in your memory yet, so you can review these until they do.
Pastoral Care Program
Students are beginning to look at the need for flexible thinking and the ability to see different perspectives. Flexible thinking allows for multiple solutions to be considered when tackling a problem and is a vital component of developing resilience.
Social Awareness Program
This week students have been selecting an organisation that helps with the issue of youth homelessness for them to focus on for the rest of the term. They will be getting to know this organisation in detail in the coming weeks.
Interesting Article of the Week
This article is one that our students have been reading this week and is aimed to help them learn how to make good decisions in life. It is important to have the skills to know what to do when faced with a difficult decision and this article gives some tips you may want to discuss with your child around the dinner table.
Ms Rebecca Mountain
Yr 10 Advisor
rmountain@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9908 6462