The Countdown to the HSC Is On
Every year, around this time, I notice the same thing with my Year 12 students.
The HSC suddenly starts to feel very close.
Students who have spent months learning their texts and developing their essays now need to shift their focus. At this point, it is less about learning more and much more about being able to use what you already know under exam conditions.
This is what I am encouraging my students to focus on now.
TIMED PRACTICE
There is a big difference between writing an essay at home, where you can stop, check your notes and take as long as you need, and writing one in an exam.
I want my students to start replicating that pressure now. It is much better to discover during practice that you are spending too long on your introduction or running out of time for your conclusion than to discover it in the HSC.
ADAPTING TO QUESTIONS
This is something I spend a lot of time working on with students.
Knowing an essay is not the same as knowing how to answer a question.
Students need to practise taking an argument they know well and adapting it to a question they haven't seen before. Change the thesis. Change the topic sentences. Decide which evidence is actually relevant.
Don't just practise writing the same essay again and again.
GET FEEDBACK AND USE IT
One of the most valuable parts of practice is finding out what isn't working.
If I give a student feedback on an essay, I want to see that feedback appearing in their next piece of writing. That is where the improvement happens.
KEEP THE PRACTICE SMALL AND CONSISTENT
I also don't want students thinking that every study session has to involve writing a complete essay.
One body paragraph.
One introduction.
One short-answer question.
One thesis adapted to three different questions.
Twenty minutes of focused practice can be incredibly valuable.
At this stage, I am not trying to make my students write more.
I am trying to make them better, faster, and more adaptable writers.
The final weeks before the HSC should be about building confidence through practice — so that when students open that exam paper, they have already experienced the pressure of having to think, adapt and write.
That is the preparation that matters now.
