Academic Honours Assembly and academic resilience
Academic Honours Assembly
As always, it was wonderful to see the confidence and poise of our graduating students who returned to attend the Academic Honours Assembly, recognising the 43% of students who achieved an ATAR equivalent to OP 1 to 4 in 2020. Students who attained top of subject prizes, in addition to the pinnacle recognition of the Dux and Second to the Dux, were also congratulated.
We are so proud of our 2020 students and their achievements, especially as they displayed such optimism, commitment and comradery throughout a particularly challenging year. Another reason for celebration is the fact that 55.9% of our Class of 2020 achieved ATARs of 90 or higher. Exceptional scores were attained across the entire Year 12 cohort, reflected through the median ATAR of 91.2 (calculated from known ATAR scores). We also enjoyed hearing from three of our graduates, who spoke to the student body about their achievements, their motivations and their plans for the future. Genevieve Hughes will study Engineering at the University of Queensland and Phoebe Marsh has decided to study Primary Education at the University of Queensland.
Academic resilience
Student resilience and wellbeing are central to both academic and social development and as a consequence, I try to access research material on this important topic for parents and educators. It is my view that we must keep student wellbeing as the central focus of all that we do at Somerville House. Your daughter’s learning and wellbeing are inseparably linked and I believe our students learn best when their wellbeing is at optimum levels. It follows that our students develop a strong sense of wellbeing when they experience success in learning. As educators, one of the challenges we face is to encourage students to value the rewards of persistence.
To achieve potential, alongside motivation and engagement, is the need for students to effectively deal with academic challenge, setback, and adversity. This brings into consideration the issue of academic resilience. In a general sense, resilience has been defined as the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaption despite challenging or threatening circumstances. In the academic context, it can be defined as students’ ability to deal effectively with academic setbacks, stress and study pressure.
Academic resilience is relevant to all students. This is because at some stage in every student's school life, she or he will experience some level of poor performance, stress or pressure that must be dealt with. For a large part, we cannot eliminate setback from students' lives, as stress and pressure are a reality of our competitive school system. Essentially, students are stuck with the constant possibility of setback, stress and pressure.
Andrew Martin’s research has examined the specific facets of motivation that best predict students' academic resilience (by implication, these are factors to enhance students' academic resilience). It found that academic resilience is most strongly predicted by high self-belief, high planning, high control, high persistence and low anxiety. Hence, this research showed that academic resilience can be conceptualised in terms of the five Cs:
- confidence (self-belief)
- coordination (planning)
- control
- commitment (persistence)
- composure (low anxiety)
Acknowledgement – Martin & Marsh. 2008. Academic buoyancy: Towards an understanding of students' everyday academic resilience.
Uniform reminder
The Family Handbook makes very clear our expectations with respect to uniform and presentation. Students who infringe our code of presentation will be asked to remove makeup and excess jewellery. Hair should be natural in style and colour. If this is not the case, the student will be required to restore her hair to its natural colour. I look forward to your support of our uniform and presentation requirements.
PMSA Newsletter
Please click here to view the PMSA's quarterly newsletter on behalf of CEO, Sharon Callister.
Mrs Kim Kiepe
Principal