Formal assessments are a summation of all the learning that has occurred for a student over a set time, any time from a Week, to a Term to a Semester, through to a Year.

This is a consistent fact in the lives of our students, whether they or their teachers and parents like it!

All students from Year 9 to Year 12 have to sit a formal test or examination, in one form. This ranks the student according to all others who are taking the same course. As such, there is a degree of stress that usually is applied when preparing for these formal assessments. We are lucky that in our School, our students have plenty of people to whom they can turn for assistance in strategies to minimise examination stress.

In Year 12, the students taking an ATAR Pathway are subject to an outside ranking process (from TISC) that links their end of year School-based results with their results from the WACE examination. In applying the ranking process, one of the processes that TISC uses is to scale students according to their ranking from their School-based results. This then makes performance in the WACE examinations a team effort. Everyone must perform their best in every assessment, not just in the final external examinations, which the Year 12s sit in November.

Whether we like this or not, this is the system for our secondary students, and it is unlikely to change soon.

Students should be working together to maximise their own academic success, and that of their peers, because collectively it is best when everyone is working towards success. This applies to every student in the Senior School: Year 10, Year 11 and Year 12 students in whatever Pathway they are taking.

Students should work in Academic Tutorial quietly and purposefully. Every student should be actively thinking in every class - asking questions related to understanding, seeking teacher assistance during or outside of the class. Completing all tasks to their best ability and prepare for those formal assessments by setting up and following at home a study and homework timetable.

All students are encouraged to get the best marks of which they are capable.

Heads of Departments set prerequisites in the knowledge of their experience of student capabilities for future success in Year 11 and 12 Courses. Year 10 students benefit getting their best marks by selecting their Year 11 WACE subjects without being restricted because of marks that are lower than the prerequisites. 

Year 11 and Year 12 students need to achieve their best marks – by always aiming to better their marks in each formal assessments by 3%.  They then benefit from not being restricted by marks poorer than the hundreds and thousands of competitors for places in the workforce, in TAFE courses and for both direct university entrance and for places in University Preparation courses.

Students, who ‘coast along’ in their courses, rarely benefit from developing and honing the resilience, persistence and grit that both success, and failure, may bring from completing formal assessments.

Whilst Year 12 General Pathway students have Externally Set Tasks to sit in Week 4 of the Examination period, all General Pathway students should utilise the School Library to complete their classwork requirements. This is especially important for those students who have switched into their new courses during the semester and must catch up on tasks and assessments.

The goal of each student in every Year, in every course, should be to get the best marks of which she or he is capable. Your marks are the key to the doors that open your future. There is no purpose for mediocrity and not giving every class 100% effort. This is one of the main ingredient of student success.

Natalie Shaw
Associate Principal Senior School