Supporting Year 12 students through the final stretch

We ask a lot from Year 12s, not least of which is to balance a range of mixed messaging about their final exams from parents, schools, and universities:

• These exams will determine your future but also these exams aren’t everything.

• Your results don’t define you but also the schools publish the photos and results of their highest-achieving students on banners, websites and social media, and invite those students back to share their success tips with next Year 12 cohort.

• Work hard: study, complete practice exams, and maximise every mark but also look after yourself: maintain balance, sleep well, exercise, socialise, and protect your wellbeing.

That’s a lot for eighteen-year-olds to contend with, as are the inescapable facts that:  

1. ATAR is a ranking system, meaning students are ultimately positioned relative to the performance of other students.  
2. The pathway to an ATAR places significant emphasis on students being able to demonstrate their learning through formal assessment and examination settings, which may not reflect every student’s strengths or preferred ways of demonstrating what they know. 

What happens to students who flail in the face of competition? To those who can’t show what they know in traditional examination settings? To those who buckle under pressure? We all know that the foundation of wellbeing is an understanding of self and of one’s unique strengths and ways of learning, however the ATAR system does not adequately cater to different ways of expressing learning. (Yet.) 

Most schools do an excellent job of supporting Year 12s on their journeys, and many have designed alternative pathways for students who aren’t aiming for a high ATAR or a direct pathway into courses such as medicine, law or engineering. However, the focus on ATAR can still come at a cost to students, whether through pressure to perform or feelings of deficit because the ‘traditional’ way doesn’t work for them. No matter how often we remind students that a different way of learning doesn’t mean a lesser ability, those who don’t thrive within the traditional pathway can still struggle with their confidence and sense of worth. 

Of course, the world will always need highly competent doctors, lawyers and engineers. However, there is truth in the timeless words delivered beautifully by Robin Williams in the Dead Poet’s Society: ‘Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are all noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.’ How do we ensure our Year 12 students find poetry, beauty, romance and love…things that contribute directly to wellbeing?

Research into student wellbeing consistently highlights the importance of: 

• Focusing on what can be controlled. It’s not possible to control exam questions, scaling, other students’ performance or final rankings. It is possible to control attitudes and behaviours, and how we choose to spend our time and energy.  

• Celebrating diversity and appreciating individual strengths. Different people contribute different strengths and perspectives to the rich tapestry of society.  

• Kindness, tolerance, decency and courtesy.

• Connectedness and belonging that go beyond tokenism.  

• Opportunities for personal growth. Fostering persistence and skills, and celebrating individual effort, with a focus on developing the self rather than competing with others.  

• Discovering personal identity, strengths and passions, and finding an individual sense of purpose.  

• Noticing and being grateful for what is good.

• Service to others and community.

• Approaching the future with optimism and hope.

This October, let’s continue to create environments where young people feel confident that they are valued not for what they achieve, but for who they are, knowing they belong, they matter, and they have something unique to offer the world.