Running from May 16 for four weeks, the aim of the series is to engage both students and parents in mastering the skills a student needs to successful answer HSC questions. The series is an opportunity for students to reflect on what the question is really asking prior to attempting to answer it.
The writing series is hosted by Assistant Principal and English teacher, Roisin McVeigh, who passionately shares her quest for students to have a deep understanding of questions, to discern the questions and ensure the examiner can visualise what they have written.
“We need to match the sophisticated marking criteria,” said Ms McVeigh.
The series includes activities that engagingly presented and include hands-on experiences of:
- deconstructing questions to help construct an appropriate answer
- engaging in group tasks
- peer marking and feedback on a written response.
With the first two weeks of the Masterclass completed, the school has had some great feedback so far from parents and students:
“The experience in the masterclass taught me to thoroughly deconstruct questions and how to comprehensively answer them. It gave me great insight in how to properly flesh out a response to a question,” said Year 12 student Layton Pellew.
“I am enjoying spending the time with my daughter and other students and parents gaining skills to help them in their upcoming trials and later in the year the HSC. The techniques we were shown were invaluable both this year and any future written response situations,” said one parent.
“The academic writing workshops have been dynamic and inspiring. The information has been specifically presented in a way to be of practical help to our HSC students in the very near future. I can't recommend it enough,” said another parent.
“Through experiencing this masterclass I have learnt many things about writing and how to construct answers. I think it has really been beneficial” said Year 12 student Catherine Mackay.
Travelling the HSC path can often be a challenging experience as there is so much for them to learn. The writing workshops are giving parents an opportunity to understand and help prepare their children for success during the HSC.
St Paul’s will continue Masterclasses for their Year 12 students for the remainder of the year.
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