Dean of Studies | Mrs Julie Quinn

QTAC Information Evening

This evening there is an information session for Year 12 parents and students around the process of applying to QTAC for tertiary entrance. The presentation commences at 6pm in the GT125 theatre and will be facilitated by Mr Ianniello, the Career’s counsellor.

Selection Evenings

Next week is a focus week for our selection evenings for the possible subjects of Music Extension and English Extension for Year 12 next year and for our current Year 8 students moving into Year 9 next year. The evenings are designed to offer information around possible choices of these subjects.

The English Extension information presentation, for current Year 11 students, is Tuesday August 22 at 6pm in the GT125 theatre, the Music Extension presentation, for current Year 11 students, is Wednesday August 24 in the Music centre. The Year 8 subject selection presentation commences at 6pm in the Campbell Centre.

Exam timetables

Exam timetables will be issued to boys towards the end of this week. These schedules are significant documents in setting up effective revision plans.

Year 10

Next week is the start of exams for our Year 10 students. I am most encouraged by the commitment that our Year 10 students have made to date. They have used the resources at Waterford well and it is most encouraging to witness their Friday roll call sessions where they review their week’s work within a group. The cohort made a significant improvement across Terms 1 and 2 and I encourage the boys to continue with their commitment to produce their very best results for this term. With the current process of selecting Senior subjects, obtaining a strong foundation in current subjects is critical in success in further years.

“Happy” students

I often meet with students and their parents to discuss academic outcomes and to seek further strategies to maximise students’ individual performances. One of the questions that I pose to students is to rate themselves on a fictitious “happy meter” scaled one to ten and then on a fictitious “motivational meter” from a scale one to ten. I request that they do this exercise across the years that they have been at Terrace. Without doubt, the two scales align and when the two meters align with a strong score, the tracker indicates a rise in academic performance. The underlying message is that the “happiest”/ most content students at Terrace are those boys who are keeping up with their work and who feel in control of their learning and assessment demands. The happiest boys are the boys who feel that they have given their best effort and received their best results – this is not necessarily a grade of an A but rather a score that they feel proud to receive. With the term being over the halfway mark and with many assignments due and exams occurring within the next three weeks, I do encourage all our boys to make that commitment to their studies. Our common strategies are Friday roll call, logging our hours and using the checklist to ensure that our revision is both methodical and relevant.

I have encouraged many boys to download the requirements for each subject from the checklist on moodle and place this in a folder for each subject. Add to the folder a separate exercise book for each subject and methodically do your revision into this exercise book. It is a very exact way of being accountable to your revision and keeping track of the knowledge required for each of the subjects.