Video Transcription

The Top 3 mistakes Students Make When Starting Year 11 (How to Avoid Them)

What’s up, guys? It’s Rowan here from Artasmart TV. Now, one of the things that can happen is when you transition from Year 10 to Year 11, it can be really easy to make a number of critical mistakes. These mistakes can then have a big impact on your ability to actually do your best, not only in Year 11, but critically in Year 12 as well. Ultimately, Year 11 is the foundation. So in this video, I’m going to be unpacking the three big mistakes that we see students make when they start Year 11, which can have big consequences over the course of the next two years. Let’s jump in and find out what these three mistakes are.

Mistake number one that students make is thinking that Year 11 doesn’t count. You know, they think that they can get in, start it, take it easy, warm up, and then, in Year 12, when Year 12 starts, they get serious. There’s a couple of reasons why this is a huge mistake. The first is that when it comes to scholarship and early entry applications, a number of them actually ask for your Year 11 results. What that means is, if you’ve goofed off and just been lazy throughout Year 11, it will impact your ability to get some of these opportunities in Year 12.

Now, importantly, if you were to get an early entry opportunity in Year 12, it also really dials back the stress on Year 12 because you know that you’re going to get into the university of your choice, hopefully for your degree, without needing an ATAR. Therefore, doing well in Year 11 and not slacking off is a great way to balance the workload and some of the stresses so that you’re not just stressed out and burning out in Year 12. You’ve laid that foundation in Year 11 with some strong results, which opens up those opportunities for you in Year 12.

Now, there’s a second reason why thinking Year 11 doesn’t count can be a huge mistake. With the new HSC syllabus, there’s much stronger interconnection between the Year 11 and Year 12 courses. If you don’t do anything, don’t apply yourself, and struggle in Year 11, in the past, it might have felt like you could really hit a big reset button and not have to worry about any of the Year 11 content. But that’s no longer the case for Year 12. A lot of the Year 11 material is very foundational. If you haven’t built it, the Year 12 content becomes quite challenging. Additionally, many of the concepts from Year 11, particularly the skills, reappear in Year 12 assessments and, particularly, in the HSC exams as well. You’d be expected to have a strong foundation in Year 11 to actually do well in Year 12.

So, this is mistake number one: whatever you do, don’t make it. Don’t think that Year 11 doesn’t count and therefore you can just chill out and start trying in Year 12.

Mistake number two: falling behind on your study notes. Whenever we interview Year 12 students and ask them, “What’s the one thing you wish you did differently throughout Year 11 and 12?” the one thing we almost unanimously hear is, “I wish I stayed on top of my study notes.” There are a couple of reasons for this. Your study notes are a critical foundation of your knowledge. You’re going to get so much content thrown at you over the course of Year 11 and 12. What your study notes therefore act as is a way to summarize and get concise on the key things that you need to learn and study for your actual exams. Creating them is a really powerful foundation for your study and your knowledge.

The problem with falling behind on them is that, what often happens is you’re madly rushing the week before the assessment to try to create them. In Year 10, you can get away with that because the volume of content isn’t as much. But in Year 11, it grows, and in Year 12, it grows even more. So what often happens then is, instead of doing actual study—doing practice questions and practice papers and applying the knowledge—students get stuck in actually just writing their study notes out and completing them. Or they just skip that step entirely and start doing practice questions. Both of these have poor implications.

In the first case, if you’re stuck doing your study notes, you’re not learning how to apply them, so you often don’t do as well. In the second case, if you skip the study notes entirely, your foundation of knowledge isn’t strong enough, and therefore, your practice responses and exam responses aren’t up to scratch. We can therefore see that getting on top of these is so, so important.

Now, there’s a bigger reason in the grander scheme of things. Year 11 should be when you build your routines. If you haven’t got into a good routine for your study notes by Year 12, things are going to get hairy quickly. So, Year 11 is also a powerful time to work out when you’re going to write your study notes, how you’re going to write them, how often, how you’re going to structure them, and answer all of those questions in a way that works for you. By the time you hit Year 12, you’ve got a system in place, you’re operating smoothly, and the stress levels are a lot lower because you know what you’re doing.

Mistake number three: quitting and dialing back on your extracurricular and co-curricular commitments. One of the things that can happen when you start Year 11 is, all of a sudden, it gets serious. The pressure may build, whether from family, friends, school, or the broader community, to start focusing on school and dialing back, or quitting, other commitments you have in your life so you can do more work for school. While a lot of this may be well-meaning, it can actually be a huge mistake.

Now, one of the things we’ve observed from all the research over the last decade with high-performing students is that all of them, so often, come to us and say, “What was so critical for me in actually maintaining my energy levels, my mental health, my well-being, and avoiding burnout, was the fact that I maintained all these other activities in my life.” It was the fact that I kept doing dance or sport, or I kept my casual job, or that I volunteered. By doing all of that, it actually enabled me to get the perspective, to get the release, so that when I was coming in and doing work, I was at my best.

There are a couple of other reasons that play here as well. There’s something known as Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law basically says that work expands to fill available time. So, if you quit all your extracurriculars and suddenly have lots of time, the theory is that you will study more. But in fact, what Parkinson’s Law explains is that you end up just procrastinating more. The work that you have takes longer to do, and so you don’t actually get more done. You just do the same amount of work in a longer period of time. That was certainly something that we’ve seen as well from all of our interviews with high-performing students who had so many commitments. They all shared that by having those other commitments, it forced them to use the time they had highly efficiently and stay focused, so they would get more out of their time.

A final reason why this is such a mistake is that, ultimately, research from some leading universities shows that keeping these other commitments in your life—exercising, playing sport, music—also improves your cognitive performance. It improves your memory and your ability to stay focused academically. That’s going to be huge because, ultimately, Year 11 and 12 is an academic journey that you need to make.

So, mistake number three is to quit all of these. Instead, what we recommend is using Year 11 to actually work out how you manage them. Work out what your plan will be for your study each week, how you’ll schedule these activities in, how you’ll balance them with your study commitments. Then, when you start Year 12, you have a plan, you know how to do it, and you can maintain these commitments so you don’t burn out. You stay healthy, and, importantly, you also operate at your best academically.

So, there you have it, guys. Those are the three big mistakes we see students make when they start Year 11. If there’s anything we can do to support you on your journey throughout Years 11 and 12—whether that’s academically, helping you with some subjects you’re grappling with, or more holistically from a mentoring point of view in helping you get motivated, get that study routine in place, deal with the stress or anxiety that comes, apply for early entry, and more—get in touch with our team at Artasmart. Leave us a comment below or head to our website at artofsmart.com.au.

Otherwise, have an incredible day, and make sure you hit the subscribe button because we’re going to bring videos like this every single week!

Video by Art of Smart