High School Assessments: It’s That Time of Term
All High School students are now entering that time of term where life begins to feel busy as they balance assessment deadlines with the need to study for in-class or Exam Block exams. Students will need to allocate and use their time carefully.
Parents, at this stage of the term, your child should be able to tell you:
- When each of their drafts are due
- What feedback they have received
- What they will do with this feedback to help improve their assessment items.
In preparation for exams, you should be seeing your son or daughter creating resources for themselves such as summary notes from their textbook, flash cards and visual flowcharts. They should be practising writing extended responses and revising content. We recommend that students complete revision tasks, look at marking criteria, structure and conditions. Timed practice tasks at home are vital contributors for success. It is also very beneficial for students to form study groups.
If you are not seeing evidence of your child working very hard in preparation for assessment, please partner with teachers by discussing the need to set goals, work hard and consistently apply themselves to their studies. You may want to consider offering accountability and rewards to help motivate your child.
Some questions parents could ask include:
- Can I see your Term 3 Assessment Schedule?
- What assessment items are due next?
- What did you learn in your draft feedback and how are you going to improve your work from here?
- How do you like to store your notes for revision (eg. reading from the screen or writing things down)?
- What can you do ahead of time to make sure you feel ready for exams to reduce any nerves?
If students do well to prepare, they prepare to do well.