The Importance of Sleep on Learning and Behaviour
Getting enough sleep is vital for positive learning and behaviour. Without enough sleep, teenagers can struggle more with emotional regulation, focus and concentration, and memory. Sleep allows the body to repair, restore and consolidate memories and information. It helps support a healthy immune system, regulate hormones and helps in physical development.
On average, teenagers need 8-10 hours of sleep:
Therefore, it’s important for parents/carers to try to ensure that teenagers have a good sleep routine. A good sleep routine is a teenager maintaining a regular ‘bedtime’ routine by ensuring a good sleep environment and managing pre-sleep activities such as screen time. The Western Australian Department of Health has a great checklist for anytime who wants strategies to help with this:
Mid-Year Assessments
Our Middle and Senior School students have participated in significant assessments in recent weeks to demonstrate their learning during Semester One. Assessment tasks and practice tasks at Elevation Secondary College are designed with increasing complexity, challenge and duration over the years to provide students with authentic assessment experiences and highly useful feedback. These assessment experiences and feedback allow students to refine and improve their exam performance over time, and are the best way to prepare students for their senior VCE exams in Year 12.
Years 11 and 12 students undertaking scored Units 3 and 4 VCE studies this year, completed the General Achievement Test (GAT) on Tuesday 17 June. The GAT is a test that measures students’ general knowledge and skills in English and Maths, Science, Technology, Humanities and the Arts. Please see here if you would like to read more information about the GAT. The GAT is a compulsory test that protects the reliability and validity of students’ VCE results.
Year 12 (Units 3 and 4) VCE English students also completed a two-hour and fifteen-minute practice exam before celebrating at the Formal on Friday 20 June 2025. Students will receive feedback on their performance in this practice exam from a very experienced Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) assessor and Year 12 English exam paper author. We are so proud of students who completed this practice exam to the best of their abilities.
Year 10 students completed 90-minute mid-year exams during Week 9. This included exams in their core subjects (English, Maths, Humanities, Sciences) and their Semester One elective subjects. It was wonderful to see our Year 10 students prepare for and attempt these exams with ambition and diligence.
The relationship between stress and exam performance is a complicated one. A little stress can enhance exam performance and too much stress is commonly thought to negatively affect exam performance. A recent study (Theobold and colleagues, 2022) indicates that the amount of stress experienced by students is linked to how prepared they are for the exam, so the best way to avoid stress levels becoming too high is for students to be very well prepared for exams. You can read here about how to support your child as they prepare for and manage their stress levels during exams.
Uniform and Cold Weather
We would have all felt the cold weather take hold over the past few weeks. With that, our uniform expectations and rules do not shift because there are many options for students to layer up. We recommend students:
- Purchase long-sleeved shirts. This allows students to wear another long-sleeved v-neck t-shirt or thermal underneath.
- Purchase the school jacket or blazer that are designed to keep the cold wind out. When combined with the school jumper, it’s really warm.
- If students’ legs feel the cold, wear some thermal bottoms underneath their uniform pants.
What we cannot have:
- Students wearing track pants instead of academic uniform pants.
- Non-uniform sleeves showing and/or non-uniform PE pants.
- An academic jumper used with the PE uniform.
As a friendly reminder, a maximum of 3 uniform passes will be issued per term.
Equipment
Whilst most students keep their locker organised; with separate books per subject, in labelled folders with a pencil case, charged laptop and diary on hand, some students have filled up their exercise books, and are using an ‘overflow’ book or an ‘everything’ book. This cannot happen.
Now is a great time to stock up on equipment, buy some extra exercise books, some extra pens, get them labelled and ready for Term Three. This will allow students to start the term well, stay organised, and be prepared for every lesson.
Elevation School Bags
It’s been noted that a small number of students are attending school either without any school bag or with a non Elevation school uniform bag. To keep appropriately organised, complete homework and study tasks and bring a charged laptop – every student in every year level must bring their Elevation school bag every day.
Pleasantries
We love the fact that students have been modelling pleasantries in the yard and in the classroom. At Elevation Secondary College, we treat all staff and students with respect and by simply saying ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’, students are making our school even better. In fact, this certainly does change the outlook of a person’s entire day and that is definitely something for our school community to feel good about. Keep it up!
Holidays
The school holidays are a fantastic opportunity for families to relax, recharge and connect. However, it is still important that students are prepared for their return to school on Monday 20th July 2025.
Therefore, students should complete any homework that they have been given and have all of their equipment and uniform replenished. We want students to hit the ground running, because Term 3 is going to be another academically challenging, yet rewarding term.
Angela Lane, Andrew Stock, Liam McKenna, Kyle Schutz, Samantha Steinkrug & Natalie Conboy
Assistant Principals