Congratulations to the many Year 12 students who have been advised that they have gained early entry to ANU for next year. This will take an enormous amount of pressure from them. Other universities will also be soon releasing early entry offers and interviews in the coming weeks and months.

Year 12 students should be putting in extra effort to complete their study before the HSC Trials commencing next week. During the last Admin lesson, Mr Hodges ran through a study technique called the Pomodoro Technique. It is essentially a method of breaking up large tasks into smaller, manageable chunks. It is a proven method to help stop procrastination and to achieve efficient study. Please visit the link https://francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-technique and encourage your child to use the technique to maximise their study.

Year 11 students should have commenced their final study for their end of year exams by now. Students should complete unit summaries of all their topics and be practising past exam questions under exam conditions. Year 11 final exams begin in Week 8.

All our Year 10 students have submitted their subject selections for next year. We are now processing the data to devise timetable lines where most students can receive their highest preferences. Unfortunately, it is not possible to achieve a 100% success rate so we endeavour to ensure our success rate is as high as possible. Sometimes, a student will find that two of their preferences end up on the same line and they do not have a preference on another line. In these cases, the student will need to choose which one they want to do and select one of the courses from those available on the line where they did not have one. This process will occur over the coming weeks.

Our Year 8 & 9 students have until Friday to complete their elective choices for next year. I have looked at the selections submitted to date and we have over 95% of them in. Students will be emailed in the coming weeks with their timetabled choices. At this stage, if they are happy with their allocation, they do not need to do anything. If they wish to make changes, this may still be possible depending on class sizes.

Recently we have had to talk to several individuals and classes about their behaviour, especially defiance and disturbing the learning of others. Please be aware that we have a zero-tolerance of students defying reasonable requests from staff. If a student refuses to cooperate they will be exited from their class and sent to a senior class for the remainder of the lesson. After that, they will be spoken to by the subject coordinator and placed on a Friday Afternoon Detention and you will be contacted by the classroom teacher. Please speak with your student(s) about ensuring they are following all reasonable requests and allowing everyone to work to the best of their ability.

Unfortunately, after the recent COVID news in our local area, we are again required to cancel any external events and visitors to the College. We will advise all parents via email about what will happen about our upcoming Parent-Teacher evenings when we have further advice from Catholic Education in Canberra.

John O’Neill

Assistant Principal

Curriculum and Achievement