By Anders Furze
In the lead up to VCE exams last year, Balwyn High School year 12 student Derrick Ch’ng and his friends came up with an innovative way to stay on track: they formed a WhatsApp group.
Every morning, the friends told each other what they wanted to accomplish that day and sent a selfie showing they were up and out of bed. At the end of the day, they reported back on what they had achieved.
“The key to the VCE, to boil it all down, is being active and not passive,” Ch’ng reflects. “Almost everything comes [back] to this simple concept.
St Albans Secondary College students balancing study and wellbeing in their VCE preparation.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
″I think a lot of students make the mistake of not being intentional with their time. They’ll study for the sake of studying instead of doing things that facilitate learning ... like actually processing a textbook instead of just highlighting, for example.”
Last year, more than 50,000 young people graduated with their VCE in Victoria. The experience can be stressful, with pressures imposed on students by friends, family and themselves.
But it can also be transformational.
“It can seem tough at times getting through these final years of schooling but it’s all part of the journey,” says Jennifer Lavin, program manager in the VCE Curriculum Unit at the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA).
“And with the right preparation, it can also be a great growth opportunity for young people.”
That was the case for Christopher Batras, who graduated from year 12 at Penola Catholic College last year. While studying he designed a prosthetic arm, which made it into the Top Designs 2024 exhibition.
He says VCE was a challenging but transformative experience.
“It matured most of my study habits and taught me a lot about how I’m going to study going forward at uni,” Batras says.
Derrick Ch’ing graduated from Balwyn High School in 2023.
While studying for the VCE, Ch’ng started a business called Start Inspiration to support pathways to TAFE for migrants, helping over 150 students find TAFE courses. While that might seem like a lot to juggle, he says his experience of year 12 taught him a lot about himself, including how his brain processes information.
“Obviously the content was interesting, but the more valuable part about it for me was learning about how I learned. And prioritisation,″ he says. ″The way I thought about it was kind of like a snowball: you remain engaged and excited about something, and that starts seeping into a lot of other aspects of your life.”
Being organised is crucial
When it comes to students doing well while looking after their mental health, Dr Scarlet Luk, a lecturer in English Secondary education at La Trobe University, has one piece of advice: avoid cramming.
“You need to begin your review of all your subjects as early as possible, even if it feels ridiculously early,″ she says. ″In the long term, it will save you a lot of anxiety and stress.”
The academic term for this approach is “spacing” or “spaced practice”. The idea is that it’s better to space out the same amount of study time over a prolonged period, rather than cram it all in at the last minute.
Luk gives the example of an English student who read and loved Ursula K Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness at the start of the year, but is now being taught Sunset Boulevard, which they don’t love as much. In that situation, it would make sense to choose the novel as the text for the exam, and start reviewing material now.
“It will prevent you from clustering all of your review of this book, and writing a dozen unhelpful essays that you will quickly forget, right at the end,” she says.
While cramming might feel natural, Luk notes that by spacing out their revision, students also help activate their long-term memory.
Christopher Batras, graduate of Penola Catholic College.Credit: Nicole Cleary
“One of the most useful things I ever heard when I was in year 12 was from a maths teacher, who said that success in the VCE is 90 per cent organisation,” she says. “People can do fine martyring themselves to cramming, but really ... it then invites a host of other bad habits, like not sleeping.”
Balancing wellbeing and study
Making sure he got enough sleep was crucial when Christopher Batras did his VCE last year – and he says it had a “big impact” on his learning: “I needed at least eight hours to function properly, otherwise I wouldn’t focus in class, or absorb what I was being taught.″
Experts agree that it’s impossible to separate the academic from the emotional. “When I was studying the VCE, I was very careful about managing my mental health,” Luk says.
Former Ballarat High School student Jasmine Goon with her mother Maricar.
“That involved picking the right subjects from the beginning, disentangling myself from toxic friends ... all those things that were detrimental in the medium term when it came to academic success.”
For Jasmine Goon, who studied year 12 at Ballarat High School, the VCE was a “very stressful” experience.
“A lot of my studying was not as effective as it could have been,″ she says. ″I was very ... unbalanced at first, and I discovered more balance throughout the year. It was a journey I had to undertake myself.”
Her hard work paid off over the year and an innovative jumpsuit she designed was recognised in the Top Designs textiles category.
A key issue for Goon was procrastination, which contributed to her feeling burned out.
To tackle the problem, she became better at breaking down tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks and rewarding herself with breaks between study sessions.
“This approach really helped me because it minimised the [sometimes] overwhelming feeling of needing more free time,” Goon says.
Don’t go it alone
Friends and family have a crucial role to play in offering support, but psychologist Andrew Fuller says that students should not be afraid to be discerning in who they listen to.
“You need to be a bit selective,″ Fuller says. ″There are friends who are valuable, who share the angst without being truly despondent and giving up. And there are the people who appear to do no work whatsoever and just get the top marks … they’re going to make you feel like crap! Because it is a hard slog, there’s no getting around that.”
Batras says having a supportive friendship group was invaluable. “Try not to isolate yourself, it’s good to talk to friends who are going through the same things. Maybe they’re stressed out about a certain topic that you can help them with.”
Jasmine Goon says her teachers played a “huge role” in supporting her work through her shyness and fear of making mistakes.
“Their commitment to guiding students was invaluable,″ she says. ″They provided extensive support; they would offer after-hours help to assist us with our coursework.”
The VCAA’s Lavin agrees that teachers play an invaluable role in guiding VCE student success.
“Teacher feedback is the most important tool you can use to develop your skills and knowledge,″ she says. ″Use the resources available to you. There are [also] resources on exam specifications and examination assessor reports, which are important tools for effective revision.”
Explore other paths
While many students undertake the VCE with the aim of getting a high ATAR and direct entry into a university course, students can also chart their own course through years 11 and 12. “When you’re choosing your VCE options, I think it’s helpful to think about what you’re interested in and what you might do after school,” says Sue Bell, executive director, senior secondary certificate reform at the VCAA.
“You don’t need to choose your dream job or career in year 10, but if you study things you’re interested in, that will help with setting and achieving your goals.”
VET study options are available for students wanting to build practical skills and the new VCE Vocational Major is a two-year applied learning program, focusing on building skills for work and life, providing real-world experience in one or more industries.
Not everyone needs an ATAR to achieve their post-school goals. Even students who want to go to university are finding multiple entry-points, whether down the track as mature-aged students or through flexible entry schemes.
“A school-based apprenticeship or traineeship is [also] a great option for students who want to learn on the job, get a head start on their career and earn money while finishing school,” Bell says.
While the VCE can feel like the only thing that matters for students in the thick of it, experts agree that it’s important to remember that life is about more than just results at school.
“We should take a broad view of what it means to be successful,” says ACU Associate Professor Steven Lewis. He is critical of the intense focus the media can put on high ATARs.
“School is obviously important, and you develop a foundation of learning that will carry you throughout your life,″ Lewis says. ″But there’s always life after school. [An ATAR is] an imperfect reflection of the complexity and individuality [of] that individual young person.”
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