Many students struggle with the overwhelming nature of studying. However with the right approach, you can study smarter and achieve better results without it consuming your life.

1. Create a Study Schedule
Organise your time by breaking study sessions into blocks (e.g., 25-30 minutes) with short breaks in between. This keeps you focused and prevents burnout.

2. Set Clear Goals
Instead of vague plans like “study math,” set specific goals, such as “complete 10 algebra problems” or “understand chapter 3.” This makes your sessions more purposeful.

3. Eliminate Distractions
Find a quiet place, put your phone on Do Not Disturb, and turn off any distractions. A focused environment improves concentration.

4. Use Active Learning
Engage with the material rather than passively reading. Summarize concepts in your own words, create flashcards, or teach the material to someone else.

5. Memory Retrieval Method
Instead of rereading notes, close your book and try to recall key points. This boosts memory and helps reinforce what you’ve learned.

6. Prioritize Health
Exercise, stay hydrated, and get enough sleep. Your physical and mental well-being must be prioritised plus if it isn’t it can affect your mental performance, so take care of your body!

With the right strategies in place, studying becomes more manageable. Stay consistent, and you’ll see improvement!

Olivia Moustakis

Studying for exams can feel overwhelming, especially when faced with a large amount of content. The Red, Green, and Orange Light Method is a simple yet highly effective strategy to help students prioritise their revision and focus on the areas that need the most attention.

How It Works

This method involves categorising topics or concepts into three colour-coded groups:

1. Red Light (Needs Urgent Attention) – These are the topics you struggle with the most. You find them confusing, often avoid them, or consistently make mistakes when answering related questions. These should be your top priority during study sessions.

2. Orange Light (Some Understanding, Needs More Work) – These are topics you have a basic grasp of but still make occasional errors or lack confidence in. These require revision and practice but aren’t as urgent as red topics.

3. Green Light (Well Understood) – These are topics you feel confident with and can explain or apply easily. While they still need review, they require less time compared to red and orange topics.

Why It Works

This method prevents students from wasting time on material they already know well while neglecting weaker areas. It also breaks down studying into manageable steps, making the process less stressful and more structured.

How to Apply It
1. Start by listing all topics or concepts that will be assessed.
2. Categorise them into red, orange, or green. Be honest with yourself—this method works best when you accurately assess your understanding.
3. Prioritise red topics first. Spend most of your study time strengthening these areas through active learning techniques like practice questions and teaching concepts to others.
4. Revise orange topics next. Use past exams, quizzes, or summarisation techniques to reinforce your knowledge.
5. Review green topics briefly. This ensures you maintain a strong understanding without overcommitting time to them.

By using the Red, Green, and Orange Light Method, you can study smarter, not harder, ensuring you’re fully prepared for your exams.

Emily Mackay

Tutoring plays a crucial role in shaping young minds by providing personalised learning experiences, boosting confidence, and fostering a love for education. Unlike traditional classroom settings, tutoring offers one-on-one or small-group instruction, allowing students to receive individualised attention tailored to their unique learning styles and needs. This personalised approach helps students grasp difficult concepts at their own pace, reinforcing their understanding and retention of material.

At First Education, tutoring goes beyond simply helping students with their schoolwork—it focuses on building a strong foundation for lifelong learning. With experienced educators who tailor lessons to each student’s needs, First Education ensures that every learner is given the support and guidance they require to excel. Whether a student is struggling with a particular subject, preparing for exams, or seeking to extend their knowledge, the tutors at First Education provide expert assistance in a supportive and engaging environment.

One of the key benefits of tutoring is the confidence it instils in students. Many children struggle with self-doubt when they find certain subjects challenging. A tutor provides guidance, encouragement, and positive reinforcement, helping students build self-esteem and develop a growth mindset. As they begin to master difficult topics, their belief in their abilities increases, leading to improved performance in school and beyond.

Tutoring also fosters critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and personal growth. By encouraging students to think independently, ask questions, and explore different solutions, tutors help cultivate intellectual curiosity. This not only improves their academic achievements but also prepares them for future challenges in higher education and the workforce.

Beyond academics, tutoring helps students develop essential study habits, time management skills, and a disciplined approach to learning. At First Education, students are equipped with the tools they need to succeed, ensuring they become confident, capable learners ready to tackle any challenge.

Mia Paras

When it comes to studying effectively, I’ve learned that it’s not just about the amount of time you put in, but how you manage your time and energy. Over the years, I’ve developed a few key strategies that have made a huge difference in my learning experience.

First, I always start by setting clear, achievable goals. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of material to cover, but breaking everything down into smaller tasks makes it manageable. I like to write out what I need to accomplish for the day, and then prioritise the most important tasks. This helps me stay focused and avoid procrastination.

Another strategy that works for me is creating a dedicated study environment. I make sure my space is quiet, organised, and free from distractions. This environment signals to my brain that it’s time to focus. I also make sure to eliminate digital distractions by turning off my phone or using apps that block social media during study sessions. This way, I can stay fully immersed in the material and avoid the temptation to check my phone every few minutes.

Lastly, unless I am doing a practice exam, I make sure to take regular breaks. I utilise a method called the Pomodoro technique, which involves studying for 25 minutes, followed by a 5-minute break. It is imperative however, to not just scroll on social media during the break because that does not rest the brain but to instead do something active like going for a little walk or something similar. This helps me maintain focus and avoid burnout, as I give myself time to recharge and refresh my mind before diving back into work.

In the end, effective studying is all about consistency and finding what works best for you. By staying organised, engaged, and disciplined, I’ve found that I can retain more information and perform better in my studies. The key is to keep experimenting and adjusting until you find the study routine that suits you best.

Michael Fry

I got the opportunity to observe Celdric and his student’s session today!

They first revised the content they had gone through last session, which helped the student to consolidate previously learned knowledge and prepare for learning new content. When completing the questions, Celdric prompted the student to talk through his thinking and provided guidance when the student was not sure of the next steps. He also provided verbal encouragement when the student completed correct steps. Using illustrations and graphs helped the student to better understand questions relating to coordinates and direction.

Towards the end of the session, Celdric checked in with how the student was progressing at school. He made sure that they had covered all topics that have been done at school, and confirmed the upcoming topics. In preparation for next session, Celdric ran through the terminology of the next topic and made sure the student was equipped with the foundational knowledge to understand the content that will be taught at school.

Thanks for letting me observe!

Derus Kung

Today, I had the opportunity to observe Alexander’s Year 3 English and Mathematics session with his student from 4-5 pm. The lesson was well-structured, beginning with English and later transitioning into Mathematics, ensuring a balanced focus on both subjects which the student really enjoyed. Alexander maintained an engaging and approach throughout, helping the student refine key skills.

The session started with English, where Alexander introduced the student to the skill of highlighting key points in a text. He guided the student through this process, demonstrating how to identify essential information efficiently. This skill not only helped with reading comprehension but also prepared the student for more structured responses in future assessments.

Following this, Alexander worked through various language conventions activities, using clear explanations and relatable examples to reinforce important grammar and sentence structure rules. He incorporated NAPLAN-style questions to familiarise the student with the format of these assessments, ensuring they felt comfortable. This approach was highly effective, as the student demonstrated strong language skills and showed confidence in applying what they had learned to their own homework and class tasks.

Toward the end of the session, Alexander smoothly moved into revision on Mathematics, focusing on telling the time and addition/subtraction. He ensured that the student fully grasped the fundamentals before introducing more challenging problems. His methodical approach allowed the student to break down each question logically, and see its relevance in everyday life.

Throughout the lesson, Alexander created a comfortable and encouraging learning environment, ensuring that the student remained engaged and motivated. His supportive teaching style, combined with well-structured activities, helped the student strengthen their skills in both subjects. By the end of the session, the student not only demonstrated a strong grasp of key English and Mathematics concepts but also left feeling more confident in their abilities. Well done, Alexander!

Eleni Nicholas

Today I had a the opportunity to observe my fellow tutor Natasya teach her Year 11 English Advanced student, Alice. Today, there were covering the legislation surrounding criminal age responsibility targeting young adults and the consequences surrounding the crime they inflict. While observing Natasya, I picked up various methods of teaching that I will keep in mind and learn from in my future sessions. This includes Natasya’s positive attitude and demeanour towards her student as they delved into deep conversation about legal advancements in different countries and the way in which criminal policies and consequences worldwide have an effect on their population. This allowed for an extremely free flowing conversation between the tutor and the student that elicits the student to ask any questions that arise. Furthermore, Natasya thoroughly embedded the concepts around writing techniques and styles to her student so that there was a full comprehensive understanding, assisting her in exam style questions that will inevitably come up in future exams. Natasya gradually built her students understanding and frequently checked in to ensure her student was following by asking questions like, “Does that make sense?”. She also portrayed a distinct amount of attention to the students understanding about the debate around changing Australia’s criminal age responsibility so that she is confident the student knows exactly how to employ her ideas into text. This was shown through her conversational cues and intense online investigation to find supporting information for their claims. They also ensured to reveal both sides of the argument so that they could draw meaningful conclusions surrounding the justification around the age of criminal responsibility. The student portrayed a calm and relaxed attitude in response to Natasya’s tuition allowing her to grasp the information and informative questions Natasya was asking her related to the topic of her investigation. By the end of the lesson, the student was confident in the content surrounding legislation of criminal age responsibility in certain countries especially Australia after being exposed to multiple facts, examples and statistics that they unveiled throughout the lesson.
Overall, I profoundly enjoyed observing Natasya tutor Alice and learnt some very valuable lessons!
Thank you

Rheanna

SN1 and SN2 are the two mechanisms of nucleophilic substitution reactions where SN1 involves only one molecule, and SN2 involves two. A nucleophile is described as reagents which donate their pair of electrons or share them with another atomic nucleus, or to form a new bond between itself. The process of what a nucleophile does in reaction is shown in figure 1. A substitution reaction is described as a chemical process where an atom or a functional group of a molecular chain is substituted by a different atom or functional group. These synthesis reaction mechanisms stand for “substitution, nucleophilic, unimolecular (SN1)/bimolecular (SN2)” mechanism.

Alkyl halides can be prepared from their corresponding alcohols through an acid catalysed substitution reaction known as the SN1 mechanism which stands for “substitution, nucleophilic, unimolecular” mechanism. A tertiary alcohol is one where the hydroxyl (OH-) function group is connected to a parent chain carbon atom which is also connected to 3 other carbon atoms which are used as the building blocks for the synthesis of natural products and pharmaceuticals. Tertiary alcohols only follow the route of unimolecular nucleophilic substitution (SN1) while secondary alcohols may also follow this mechanism. The rate determining step within the SN1 reaction mechanism is where the reaction follows first order kinetics, meaning the rate of reaction is dependent on the concentration of only one reactant, in this case, it is dependent upon the concentration of t-butanol. Under acidic conditions (the addition of sulfuric acid (H2SO4)) the mechanism of the SN1 reaction involves the rapid protonation of the alcohol, followed by the loss of water as the rate determining step.

Unlike SN1 reactions, the SN2 mechanism occurs all within a single step and is bimolecular reaction. The SN2 reaction mechanism is also referred to as “solvolysis”, which is a chemical reaction where the solvent, such as water or alcohol is one of the reagents and is present in large excess required for the reaction to proceed, in which only primary alcohols and potentially secondary alcohols follow the route of the SN2 reaction (specific for nucleophilic aliphatic substitution). The mechanism for the SN2 reaction relies on the concentrations of both reactants, for example in the following reaction, it requires a collision between a hydroxide ion and a methyl bromide molecule.

Chris Mylonas

I had the opportunity to observe Ava’s session today ! At the start, she took a few minutes to check in with the student, asking about their holidays and how they were feeling about the new school year. This helped re-establish rapport and set a positive, comfortable tone for the lesson which I think is particularly important when starting the new term after such a long break.

I also really liked the way she began by reviewing key concepts from last year to first identify any gaps or weaknesses in the students’ understanding that needed to be addressed before diving into new work. Rather than assuming the student remembered everything, Ava asked more open-ended questions to gauge how they were feeling about the content. Once Ava went over the concepts that were weaker, she effectively built upon this foundation to branch into the content that the student was currently covering in class.

Ava made a great effort to validate the student’s thought process, even when corrections were needed or her logic was slightly flawed. Instead of simply pointing out the mistakes, Ava prompted the student with guiding questions or alternate ways of thinking to help them refine their ideas. This approach not only reinforced the student’s understanding but also built the student’s confidence in their own problem-solving abilities and allowed them to think more critically about the subject matter.

After each new idea that was introduced, Ava made sure to summarise it and reinforce the key take-aways to ensure the student grasped the most important parts of the lesson. Overall, Ava did a fantastic job at easing the student back into the tutoring mindset ! Great job !

Annaliese Lakis

Today, I was able to observe Kieran’s PDHPE session. Although I don’t typically tutor this subject, it was a valuable opportunity to witness Kieran in action and learn from his approach.

The session began with Kieran quizzing the student on content from last term to help them recall key information. This was a great strategy to reinforce learning and assess the student’s retention. Kieran also provided insightful tips about the syllabus, discussing how certain dot points might appear in exams or in exam-style questions. This approach not only clarified the exam format but also helped the student better understand how to apply their knowledge in a test setting.

One particularly effective technique Kieran used was linking the content to the student’s real-life experiences. For instance, he incorporated the student’s experience with a broken wrist to connect it to the content, making the lesson more relatable and engaging.

Kieran also made good use of the whiteboard to explain key terms and symbols. By writing down important concepts visually, he ensured that the student had a clear understanding of the material. This combination of verbal explanations and visual aids helped reinforce the lesson and made it easier for the student to grasp the content.

Overall, it was a great learning experience for me, and I was able to see firsthand how Kieran effectively engages and supports his students.

Tynan Philmara