Today, I took the opportunity to observe Raphael tutor one of his year 6 English students. As a maths tutor primarily, I find it especially interesting to observe English sessions to see how they differ in structure. What I first noticed was how quiet the lesson was. Raphael assigned his student a text to read through and allowed him ample time to process all the information and understand the key parts of the text before attempting to ask him any questions. This quiet environment allowed the student to focus well and comprehend the main features of the text himself, rather than constantly interrupting to point out key ideas.

Raphael also broke up the lesson with a quick game of UNO to keep his student focused for the remainder of the session. After reading through the text, Raphael ensured the student had a thorough understanding of the story by testing his knowledge with various questions involving the characters, as well as figuring out definitions of unfamiliar words together with his student. He did this by breaking down the words and focusing on their context within the text to see if his student could roughly guess the meaning. He would then clarify the exact definition and provide specific examples to help the meaning stick. Raphael took his time and listened to his student’s responses carefully, whilst encouraging him to add additional details in his answer to make it more sophisticated.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed observing this session and will implement some of the strategies shown.

Katherine Mavrolefteros

One of the biggest mistakes I see my students make when exams are approaching is creating a study schedule that is trying to fit too much into it. While it can feel productive and tempting to create a schedule that has you studying several hours everyday, unrealistic plans often lead to frustration and can overwhelm you. The key to creating a successful study schedule is making one that works for your lifestyle and afterschool commitments, which allows you to maintain consistency. Ive seen many students create timetables that are extremely ambitious, and when they arent checking off every task by the date they set, the unfinished tasks snowball until they become overwhelmed and quit studying altogether. A study schedule should challenge you, but it should also be realistic.

I first tell my students to block off any commitments that they have during the week. This includes any sport, extracurricular activities or family commitments that are non-negotiable. Once these are added to their schedule, you can see where study sessions realistically fit. Next, i try and break the time they have into manageable blocks. Rather than placing in the timetable to study for 3 hours straight, I tell them to aim for 30-60 minute sessions with breaks in between. It is also important to prioritise subjects. Spend more time on topics you find challenging and less time on areas where you already feel confident. I also encourage my students to be specific when they create their timetable and outline the specific tasks they want to complete that day, which makes sure that you have clear goals to work towards and can measure how you are tracking. Another really important point to remember when making a study schedule is to make sure to leave time for leisure and rest! Finally, remember that a study timetable is not set in stone. If something is not working, adjust it. The most effective timetable is one that is flexible and realistic.

Annaliese Lakis

The secret to feeling confident on exam day isn’t pulling all-nighters or re-reading every textbook. It’s having a simple, steady plan for the week ahead. Here’s your go-to checklist.

1. Know What’s Coming
Before anything else, get clear idea on what’s actually in the exam. Read your notification, double check the topics with your textbook, look at past papers, or any study guides your teacher has provided. Write down the topics you feel confident about and the ones that you know might need some more practice. This takes the guesswork out of the whole week.

2. Focus on Your Weak Spots
Start with the topics that feel tricky. Work through practice questions slowly. The goal isn’t to rush through them, it’s to actually understand where you’re going wrong. If you’re stuck, this is the perfect time to ask your teacher or tutor for help.

3. Practice Under Exam Conditions
Pick a past paper and set a timer. Sit somewhere quiet, put your phone away, and treat it like the real thing. This builds familiarity with the format and helps ease exam-day nerves.

4. Review and Fill the Gaps
Mark your practice paper honestly. Go back over any questions you got wrong and figure out why. Was it a silly mistake or a concept you need to revisit? Spend this session tying up loose ends.

5. The Day Before: Light Review Only
Keep it easy. Flick through your notes, review key formulas, and remind yourself of what you already know. No heavy lifting today. Our brain needs space to consolidate everything.

6. The Night Before: Rest
A good night’s sleep does more for your exam performance than any last-minute study session ever could. You’ve put in the work, trust yourself!

Preparation isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing the right things at the right time.

Emma Birrell

The tutor was welcoming to the student and checked what topics the student wanted to work on/learn, which effectively ensures that the student actually gets what they want out from the tutor and learns what is most urgent/important. The tutor went through practice questions provided by the student and slowly worked through them, explaining the thought process behind the questions every time. Some of the topics addressed was combinatorics, binomial distribution and other probability concepts such as Pascal’s Triangle. It is important the student also has questions for the tutor and shows their eagerness to learn and improve. Students, particularly at a more mature age, need to take responsibility for their learning so they can target the areas that require the most work with their tutor. They can always be doing practice questions throughout the week as well as tutoring homework to be certain to have questions to ask tutors. This also reinforces concepts learnt in sessions/classes.

Additionally, practice questions are effectively the best method of learning. This is because it is a form of active recall, or rather, the retrieval of information from the brain. This is psychologically proven to be an effective study method known as retrieval practice. The students action of retrieving information from their brain solidifies the information into longer term memory. This was emphasised by the tutor, telling his student that after completing many questions, you will gain better pattern recognition, and understand what to do in different situations regarding a single topic.

Other effective study methods which will minimise study time include spaced repetition and elaboration. Spaced repetition combined alongside active recall (practice questions, flashcards etc.) allows for the stabilisation of memories/information in the brain and is much more effective compared to a common study technique of cramming all of the content in one night. Elaboration involves drawing connections between different contextual points, whether it is involved in examinable content or the real world, allows for further consolidation of information in a students mind.

Erynn Marlowe

Watching Vasili tutor Thomas in Physics was a stellar reminder of how a senior student and their tutor should be able to work together to improve both competence and confidence.

Vasili did a wonderful job of (one at a time) setting up individual problems on the whiteboard and allowing Thomas to work away at them – Oppenheimer style. He watched supportively, but also did a great job not to intervene at every opportunity, allowing Thomas the most leighway possible to work through the complexities of each question and harness the full depth of his understanding.

Vasili has clearly emphasised the importance to Thomas of neatly organising his working out – Thomas’ thought process was clearly regimented and structured, making it effortless for any marker to track his thought process as he navigated each problem towards solution.

At the end of each problem, Vasili also broke down everything that Thomas did well, and addressed any gaps in his working out / thinking process, utilising resources such as instructional videos to illustrate even more clearly that which he was already doing a wonderful job of explaining.

It was also very clear to me that Thomas feels very comfortable in Vasili’s care – looking to him for reassurance frequently and thinking out loud to him, as if he were his own conscience. Vasili also clearly has a knack for preempting what a student is about to communicate that they are struggling with, often already drawing up on the board the answer to Thomas’ question before he had even finished communicating it – really, very impressive – to say the least.

Overall, observing Vasili and Thomas work through different Physics problems together was a phenomenal reminder that tutoring is a dance – one where both the student and the teacher guide eachother to different areas of the ballroom. The tutor must make it such that the student feels comfortable enough opening up to them about where they require support, and it is our job (as tutors) to meet our students where their feet are, and provide them with everything it is that they require.

Thomas Koutavas

English tutoring is one of the most rewarding ways to help students grow in confidence, communication, and critical thinking. While many students initially see English as simply another school subject, tutoring often helps them discover that it is much more than analysing books and writing essays. It is about learning how to express ideas clearly, think independently, and engage with the world around them.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of English tutoring is watching students develop confidence in their own abilities. Many students come into sessions feeling overwhelmed by essay writing, unsure how to structure their ideas, or lacking confidence in their interpretations of texts. Through personalised support and consistent practice, they begin to realise that there is no single “perfect” answer in English. Instead, success comes from developing thoughtful arguments and supporting them with evidence. Seeing a student go from doubting themselves to proudly sharing their ideas is incredibly rewarding.

English tutoring is also highly interactive and creative. Every text opens the door to discussions about human experiences, relationships, morality, and society. Whether analysing a Shakespeare play, exploring a dystopian novel, or preparing for an HSC essay, lessons often involve meaningful conversations that encourage students to think beyond the classroom. No two sessions are ever exactly the same, which keeps tutoring engaging for both the tutor and the student.

Another rewarding aspect is helping students achieve goals they once thought were out of reach. Whether it is improving assessment marks, preparing for exams, or simply feeling more comfortable in class, every improvement represents hard work and growth. Academic success is important, but the confidence students gain along the way is often the most valuable outcome.

Ultimately, English tutoring is rewarding because it allows tutors to make a genuine difference in a student’s educational journey. By helping students develop stronger writing skills, analytical thinking, and self-belief, tutors provide tools that will benefit them far beyond school. It is a role that combines learning, creativity, and mentorship, making it both enjoyable and deeply fulfilling.

Lara Venn Jones

Learning is often associated with improvement and getting answers correct and while this is partially true and improvement is definitely the goal, how students deal with mistakes is the catalyst for learning. For a student to grow academically making mistakes is crucial. Students who never make mistakes often sty stagnant within their learning and this isn’t a coincidence because mistakes are essential. Getting questions wrong is often viewed as a negative but it shows the students what they can and need to improve upon thus providing an opportunity for learning.

The greatest students are able to harness their mistakes and use them to further themselves academically rather than viewing them as failures. This mentality separates top achieving students from others. Students should utilise the errors they make and use them as drivers to motivate them to improve. Students need to look back at past exams they they did poorly on rather than feeling ashamed of avoiding it. By looking back at past papers that they completed and re-attempting questions they got wrong they can then learn from them and improve for the next exam rather than getting the same style of questions wrong again.

By embracing mistakes rather than hiding from them students are able to harness their learning and improve independently and efficiently. Students must have a drive to improve and use their mistakes efficiently without dwelling on the error for too long. Mistakes allow room for growth and for the student to identify specific area that need improvement and with teacher or tutor feedback the improvement and direction can be pointed out easily. This allows the student to understand what they need to work on and how to work on it, stoping the confusion of “Why did I get this wrong” in its tracks.

Olivia Moustakis

As trial exams approach, often students are uncertain about how to study and become quite anxious before their exams, however, preparation that starts early can prevent this stress.

Often students will wait until the holidays actually start before they begin any study, however, it’s important to properly plan out one’s study schedule for trials before the term breaks up, which includes exactly what needs to be covered in each subject, particular topics which may need more revision, and map these tasks out into a calendar to get a visual representation of how much time they have to study. By planning out each week as they go, students can remove the stress of deciding what to study each day and have more of a structure.

It may seem like a lot, but completing a decent amount of study each day beats cramming at the end of the holidays. Even a few hours of productive work each day will add up to a large amount of study by the end of the holidays, instead of trying to do massive 10 hour study days just once or twice a week.

It’s also important for students to maintain a study life balance, and actually incorporate some downtime into their schedules. Students who actually give themselves break can retain information better and perform more consistently by maintaining motivation and preventing burnout before exams even start.

Daisy Brenac

1. Cody Ramsey 8/10- Decent but can’t make any post contact metres about of own half
2. Rex bassingwaithe- 7/10- Try on debut. Decent
3. Billy smith- 7/5/10- Good pcm but bad in defence and didn’t offer much in attack
4. Reece foley 6/10 Unlucky debut with an early HIA
5. Tommy Talau 5/10- Send him back to manly. Not good
6. Savala- 6/10- Got an early HIA as well.
7. DCE- 6/10- Played the whole game but was still awful and should have just retired
8. Nafahu Whyte- 9.5/10- Played all 80 and genuinely made 1 million runs. HIM
9. Connor watson- 8/10- Ended up having to play in the halves. Decent for the circumstances
10. Spencer Leniu- 6/10- Whole lot of nothing
11. Angus Crichton- 7/10- Meh better than normal
12. Siua Wong- 7.5/10- Yeah alright
13. Salesi foketi- 6.5/10- Didn’t get up to much
14. Beniah Ioelu- 6.5/10- Was alright coming back to cover HIAs
15. Taylor Losalu- ./10- Pretty sure he didn’t get any minutes because Whyte played all of them.
16. Nat Butcher- 5.5.10- Changed nothing but got played at least
17. Egan butcher- 4/10- Yeah got subbed on for like 15 and did nothing as normal

Charlie Currell

Homework plays an important role in supporting student learning snd academic success. While learning begins in the classroom, homework provides students with the opportunity to continue developing their knowledge and skills independently at home.

One of the key benefits of homework is that it reinforces concepts taught during lessons. When students practice skills such as reading, spelling, mathematics or writing outside of school hours, they strengthen their understanding and improve their ability to recall information. Regular practice helps students build confidence and become more successful learners.

Homework also encourages the development of valuable life skills. By completing tasks independently, students learn responsibility, organisation and time management. These skills are essential not only for success at school but also for future education and employment. Learning too plan, prioritise and meet deadlines helps students become more self-directed and accountable for their learning.

Another importance advantage of homework is that it creates opportunities for families to engage in their child’s education. Parents and caregivers can gain insight into what their children are learning and provide encouragement and support. Research has shown that when families take active interest in learning, students are often more motivated and achieve better education.

Additionally, homework allows teachers to assess students’ understanding of concepts taught in class. It can highlight areas where students may need additional support or extension, enabling teachers to tailor future learning experiences to meet individual needs.

It is important that homework is purposeful, manageable and appropriate for student’ age and ability levels. Quality homework should reinforce learning without causing unnecessary stress or taking away from important family, recreational and wellbeing activities.

When used effectively, homework is a valuable tool that strengthens learning, builds essential skills and fosters positive connections between home and school. By encouraging consistent homework habits, we can help students develop the confidence and independence needed to succeed both inside and outside the classroom.

Maria Christou