Senior School

Academic achievements

Congratulations to the following students on their academic achievement last year, achieving all As or all As and one B for Semester 2 2023. These young men have also demonstrated excellent learning behaviours, reflecting the hard work and diligence that often underpins real success.

Techniques for preparing and completing exams

With the end of term on the horizon, students will be approaching exams across various subjects. Understandably this can present as a daunting task. However, help is available, with useful techniques on hand to help calm the nerves, focus the attention and approach your exams with confidence.

A great resource is provided by the University of Sheffield. I encourage you to visit the page and read it in full. It covers how to use your time in an exam, specific tips for essay-based and multiple-choice exams and a range of tips and further links.

The key points from the article are below:

How do you use your time in an exam?

At the beginning of an exam

• Use your planning or perusal time wisely. Read the instructions at least twice, even if you are familiar with the style and format of the exam.
• Read the entire paper carefully at least once, noting how many questions you need to complete and the exam length.
• Next, consider how long you will spend on each question, ensuring that the time allocated to a question matches the number of marks available.

Before you start writing

• Re-read each question and break it down into its parts.
• Look for cognitive verbs, such as analyse, argue, compare and contrast, critique, and discuss. See the attached document.
• Highlight keywords or phrases.
• Examiners don’t want you to write everything you know. Instead, they want to see that you have critically engaged with the set questions.

Try to allocate some time to proofreading and checking.

Strategies for multiple choice exams

Five step process

This strategy helps you to avoid being confused or distracted by incorrect options and to make positive and confident choices.

1. Cover up the answers and read the stem. It might help to underline negatives or absolutes, e.g., never, none, unless or not.
2. Anticipate or make a ballpark guess at the correct answer if you can.
3. Uncover all the answers. Do any of them correspond to your anticipated answer?
4. Read all the answers carefully, even if your first choice seems obvious.
5. Choose your answer.

First impressions

Your first impression is often your best friend for a few important reasons:

• Your guesstimate will help you to eliminate obviously incorrect answers.
• Examiners are not trying to trick you – if it seems right, it probably is!
• If you are well prepared and have read the question and possible answers carefully, your first impression is probably right.
• As a general rule of thumb, only go back to change an answer if you have a very good reason to do so.

Watch out for answers that are worded similarly but have different meanings. This can be extremely common in MCQ exams, so read the question carefully and select the correct answer.

Essay-based exams

Writing an essay under the time pressure of an exam can be challenging. It requires careful planning and organisation to set out your thoughts.

• Understand the question: Exam questions usually involve a prompt word/cognitive verb that dictates the structure and approach required in the essay. Please pay attention to the prompt word/cognitive verb; it will make planning and structuring your essay much easier.
• Plan your exam answer: Spending time planning the content and structure of your exam answer will be an investment that will pay off when you start writing.

Calming the nerves

Practice breathing techniques. A breathing exercise can help slow your breathing and calm your nerves. Try the square breathing method.

Before taking the exam/test, visualise yourself sitting down, answering the questions and getting a good grade.

Kelly Jackson
Senior Learning Support Coordinator

Artist in residence: ‘the churchie’ finalist Jordan Azcune

Jordan Azcune, an artist and maker who has participated in a wide range of solo and group exhibitions, and has been awarded prizes, grants, and residencies, was selected in 2019 as a finalist for ‘the churchie’, earning the People’s Choice Award. As suggested by his accolade, Jordan is an artist whose work is contemporary but also accessible, interesting, and enjoyed by the general populace. We were therefore delighted when Jordan agreed to work alongside Year 11 IB and QCE artists, sharing his fascination and love of colour, optics and spirituality. Over two four-hour workshops, Jordan guided our student artists to find their own connections with these themes through experimentation and expression. The results were fantastic. The boys were enthused and engaged, immersed as they were in materials and making. The classrooms were hives of wax (excuse the pun) and plaster casting activity and it seemed that four hours went by very quickly. No one could believe it when the bell rang for lunch.

We would like to warmly thank Jordan for generously sharing his expertise, time and wisdom with our art community. The art teachers are looking forward to seeing what the boys will do with their newfound knowledge. Even better, wouldn’t it be wonderful if they, at some point in the future, became a finalist for the churchie emerging art prize?

Dr Vicky Leighton
Committee Member ‘the churchie’

Rod Olsen
Head of Senior School