First Education

Holidays are a great time to relax and take a break from the usual routine of school. Using this time to switch off and spend time with friends and family can allow you to return back into the term with energy and motivation to concentrate and study. However, the holidays can also be used as a time to get ahead and begin the term prepared with knowledge and not forgetting everything that was covered in the term before.

Finding the middle ground between completely ‘switching off’ and studying hard can be difficult. My top tips are:

– Set aside 30 minutes to an hour for study each day, just a small amount of time can make a big difference

-Set goals for each subject so you know what to do each day

– Make sure all notes are up to date and holiday homework is done

This should allow you to enter the term feeling prepared but refreshed for class each day.

Maddie Manins

Balancing exercise with study is essential for both academic success and an individuals and students overall wellbeing. Many students believe that spending more time studying will automatically lead to better results, but neglecting or reducing physical activity can actually actually reduce focus, energy, and motivation. Therefore, by incorporating regular exercise into a study routine it can help optimise both physical and mental performance.

Exercise plays a key role in enhancing brain function. When you engage in physical activity, blood flow to the brain increases, delivering oxygen and nutrients that improve concentration, memory, and learning capacity. This means that even short bursts of movement can make study sessions more effective. Instead of long, unproductive hours at a desk, combining study with exercise can lead to better retention and understanding of information.

In addition to cognitive benefits, exercise is crucial for managing stress and maintaining mental health. Academic pressure, deadlines, and exams can create high levels of anxiety. Physical activity provides a natural outlet for stress by releasing endorphins, which help improve mood and promote a sense of wellbeing. This can make challenges feel more manageable and reduce the risk of burnout. Therefore it is important to find a sport that you enjoy and want to participate in! Creating a balance between study and exercise requires planning and consistency. Scheduling workouts just like study sessions can help build a routine that supports both.

Even 20–30 minutes of exercise a day such as a walk, gym session, or sport, can significantly boost energy levels and productivity. Using exercise as a break between study blocks can also refresh the mind and improve focus. Ultimately, exercise should not be seen as time taken away from studying, but as an investment in better academic performance. By prioritising both, students can achieve a healthier lifestyle, improved results, and a more sustainable approach to learning.

Daniella Antoun

Happy Easter / Xristos Anesti for everyone who celebrated!! Hope the break was restful and rejuvenating for everyone. Over the break, I had more time than usual to do some reflecting, and wanted to share one thought in particular with you all this evening. “How can I make the tutoring experience as rewarding as possible for my students?”

I heard Alex Hormozi say on a podcast once that successful people don’t have more “grit” or “willpower” than regular folks, they’ve just found more ways to get rewarded for doing the same task. As we become more and more competent at things, we become less and less outcome oriented and can become more immersed in and rewarded from the actual process itself. At that point, the process itself is what becomes most rewarding, and the destination (or in academia, the test results) – just a nice byproduct.

I thought “how can I keep my students in a perpetual state of process-oriented focus, instead of outcome-oriented focus?” Or, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined it, a constant state of flow? The answer, to me was obvious – progressive overload. A concept not unfamiliar to regular gym goers – instead of shooting for the stars or unreasonably large leaps in progress every single session, simply starting at a point that our student finds challenging (though not anxiety inducing) and making incremental increases in question challenge (or in the gym analogy – load, over time).

As our students get more and more confident in their ability to answer questions at the level they’re at, they become increasingly eager to continue attacking harder and harder problems, because the process of answering questions (and over time, getting more and more of them correct) is what has become rewarding in and of itself. Ideally, we’re creating little question answering machines who have learned to become so rewarded and fulfilled by the process (answering challenging questions) that gets them the favourable results (good test marks) that when the A’s come back, they’re just icing on the cake.

Thomas Koutavas

In English, you have to put yourself out there in a unique way: you have to articulate what you think, a process interwoven with emotions, experiences, desires, and other such sticky business.

When younger kids struggle in English, our instinct might be to fix the skill problem visible in their work, meaning more homework, worksheets, or spelling tests. And sometimes that helps, but it doesn’t always shift the underlying issue — which is not just that they “can’t” do it, but that they don’t even think they “can” in the first place. This is especially true of younger kids, where confidence dictates their willingness to engage (unlike older kids who might have the looming shadow of the HSC or a termly exam to motivate them). So the thing that differentiates “strong” students is not always pure ability, and instead often their willingness to have a go (while the less confident one is still sitting there trying to get it perfect in their head before opening their mouth)

Something I’ve observed across my own experiences as both a student and a tutor: kids are constantly reading the room to gather environmental information, asking questions like: what happens if I get this wrong? Will this teacher laugh at me? Will it seem like a stupid mistake?

If the signal they get is “you should already know this” or “only good answers matter”, they WILL start protecting themselves emotionally, and it’s very hard to get them to re-engage.

On the flip side, when it’s clear that trying counts, that half-formed ideas are great news, and that mistakes aren’t a big deal, you see that shift almost immediately. That means we need to be careful about what we reward: if “good” can include things like taking a risk, explaining an idea, or even just attempting the task properly, this encourages more self-conscious students to give it a go.

So, for younger learners, confidence is key in many of the things we can teach them – meaning once it is there, they can learn just about anything.

Mica Krzyzanowski

Observing Demetria’s tutoring session with her Year 6 student provided valuable insight into effective strategies for teaching decimals. The lesson focused on adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimals. Areas that can be challenging due to their reliance on strong place value understanding and procedural accuracy. It was clear from the outset that the session was carefully structured to support both conceptual understanding and skill development.

A key strength of the session was Demetria’s clear and methodical approach. She broke down each operation into manageable steps, ensuring the student understood the reasoning behind each method rather than simply memorising procedures. For example, she emphasised the importance of aligning decimal points in addition and subtraction, and revisited place value concepts when introducing multiplication and division. This reinforced foundational knowledge and helped the student make meaningful connections between different operations.

Demetria also made the session highly interactive, which kept the student engaged throughout. She encouraged the student to work through problems aloud and explain their thinking, allowing her to identify and address any misunderstandings immediately. This approach not only reinforced learning but also built the student’s confidence and encouraged active participation.

Another notable aspect was her adaptability. When the student encountered difficulty, particularly with dividing decimals, Demetria adjusted her explanation and introduced simpler examples to clarify the concept. She ensured that the pace of the lesson matched the student’s needs, creating a supportive and responsive learning environment.

The session also incorporated progressive practice, with questions increasing in difficulty as the student’s confidence grew. This allowed the student to consolidate their skills while being appropriately challenged.

Overall, this observation highlighted the importance of clear instruction, interactive learning, and adaptability in tutoring. Demetria’s approach effectively supported both understanding and confidence, demonstrating how thoughtful teaching strategies can significantly enhance student learning in mathematics.

Isabella Naumovski

They worked through a few HSC practice exam questions on annuities during the session. At the start, the student was clearly finding the questions a bit difficult, especially when it came to figuring out what the question was actually asking and which formula to use. Instead of jumping straight into solving it, the tutor slowed things down and helped them unpack the question properly. They went through things like identifying the interest rate, number of periods, and whether it was asking for present or future value, which made the question feel a lot more manageable.

From there, the tutor went over the different annuity formulas, explaining what each one is used for and when it applies. Rather than just telling the student which formula to pick, he focused on helping them understand why it was the right choice. Everything was done algebraically, and the tutor talked through each step, including how to substitute values correctly and avoid common mistakes.

They worked through about three questions together like this, with the tutor checking in regularly and getting the student to explain their thinking. You could see the student starting to feel more comfortable as they went along. Towards the end, the tutor gave the student a similar question to try on their own. This time, they were able to work through it with much more confidence and got to the correct answer with minimal help. It was a clear improvement from the start of the session, and showed that breaking the process down and focusing on understanding really helped.

Lily Powell

I recently watched Anthea tutor one of her Year 6 students on long division, and it was honestly a really good reminder of how much teaching is about how you explain something, not just what you explain.

Instead of jumping straight into a big, messy question, she started simple. She gave the student a few division problems with no remainders first, just to build confidence and get the basics right. You could see the student relax a bit once they realised they actually understood what was going on.

Then she slowly stepped it up. When they got to a harder question like 931 divided by 3, she didn’t just say “do long division.” She broke it down into really small, manageable steps. She asked questions like “what’s 3 divide 9?” and waited for the student to answer before moving on. Then she followed with “what’s 3 divide 3?” and so on. It wasn’t rushed at all, and each step felt clear.

What stood out most was how she kept the student involved the whole time. Instead of explaining everything herself, she guided the student to work it out. Even when the student hesitated, she didn’t jump in straight away, she gave them time to think, which made a big difference.

By the end, the student was doing the questions with way more confidence than at the start. It showed how effective it is to break things down, start easy, and build up slowly. Long division can feel overwhelming, but the way Anthea taught it made it seem completely doable.

Eireyna Papinyan

It is commonly believed that we as humans have 5 senses. These are known as the basic senses and include visual, auditory, touch, taste, and smell. The ‘hidden’ senses include vestibular, proprioception, and interoception. Vestibular is our sense of balance and knowing how to move or position our body so that we can balance. Proprioception refers to our body awareness and its position in space, for example, if you were to close your eye and hold your arm up without physically seeing it you would be able to feel how high it is raised and where it is in relation to the rest of your body. The final of the lesser known senses is interoception which is knowing the internal state of our body, this includes sensing when we need the bathroom, are too hot or cold, or are hungry or thirsty.

These senses are very important to know as an educator particularly in an inclusive education environment. Students learn best in inclusive classrooms that consider everyone’s needs, including students’ sensory preferences. Of course, it’s difficult to cater to every preference, but there are adjustments you can make to keep sensory stimuli at a level that allows your students to feel comfortable, focussed, and safe. Observe and get to know your students and their sensory preferences so you can create a more effective learning environment in whatever space you’re in.

Students may be:

– Hypersensitive: they experience overwhelmingly more sensory input that others, e.g., lights may seem too bright or noises too loud. This can result in sensory avoidance behaviour (trying to get away from this sensory input)

– Hyposensitive: they are much less responsive to particular sensations and need more of that sensory stimulus to recognise the sensation and/or feel comfortable, e.g., dislike quiet spaces and prefer listening to music to concentrate. This can result in sensory seeking behaviour (trying to get more sensory input from the environment).

Kaeley Pitt

Getting kids back into tutoring after the school holidays can feel like a slow start…but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, this window before school resumes is one of the most valuable times to engage new learning habits in a low pressure way. After a break, it’s normal for children to feel a bit out of routine, a bit uninterested and unfocused. Rather than jumping straight into heavy, hard and new work, the focus should be on rebuilding confidence and consistency. Start with light revision, so reviewing key concepts from the previous term helps reactivate knowledge without overwhelming them. This might include basic exercises, timetables, topic revision etc.

It’s also a great time to focus on learning behaviours, not just content. It is so important to get the most out of every session, so while they don’t have any immediate exams coming up, it can be a great time to focus on planning for the term, organisation, goal-setting, and independent thinking. These can make such a big difference once school starts. For younger students especially, keeping things engaging is key. Incorporating games, creative writing prompts, or real-life problem solving can make learning feel enjoyable rather than like a chore. The aim is to ease them back into a learning mindset, not to replicate an intensive school day.

Importantly, this period allows us as tutors to identify any gaps early. Without the pressure of current schoolwork, there’s space to strengthen foundations before new content is introduced in class. Ultimately, the goal isn’t to race ahead, it’s to start steady. A calm, structured re entry into tutoring builds momentum, so when the school term begins, the student feels prepared, confident and ready to engage!! Small, consistent effort now can build confidence and reduces stress later, setting students up for a smoother transition back into school.

Shyla Gloster

Most students believe they are studying when they are actually just spending time near their notes. There is a big difference between the two, and confusing them is one of the most common reasons smart, hardworking people still underperform on exams.

Passive studying feels productive. Re-reading a chapter, highlighting sentences, watching a lecture video for the second time: all of these activities create a sense of familiarity with the material that your brain mistakes for actual understanding. Psychologists call this the fluency illusion. Because the information feels easy to process, you assume you have learned it. Then the exam arrives, the context shifts slightly, and the knowledge evaporates. Active studying is different. It is uncomfortable. It involves closing the book and trying to recall what you just read, solving problems you have never seen before, and explaining concepts out loud as if teaching someone else. These strategies feel harder because they are harder. Your brain is being asked to retrieve and apply information rather than simply recognise it. That difficulty is the whole point.

The research on this is not new. Studies on retrieval practice consistently show that testing yourself on material, even before you feel ready, produces significantly better long-term retention than re-reading the same content. Spaced repetition, where you revisit material at increasing intervals, compounds this effect further. So what does a better study routine actually look like? It starts with putting the highlighter down. Instead of marking your notes, summarise them from memory. Instead of re-reading a chapter, write down everything you can recall before opening the book again. Instead of passively watching a tutorial, pause it every few minutes and explain the concept back in your own words. Your study routine should feel like a workout, not a stroll. If it feels easy, it probably is not working.

Misha Fry