RACQ Sessions

This week we welcomed the team at RACQ who ran several sessions for our Years 10-12 students. The topics included financial literacy and driver awareness. These sessions were very informative and a positive learning experience for our students. We thank the RACQ Team for this opportunity, as these have been provided free-of-charge to the College.

University Open Days

We have made the decision to not proceed with the planned University Open Day visits this year. Due to the unpredictability of COVID, we believe that it is in best interests for our students not to attend. With important assessment occurring in the coming weeks, we need to mitigate any chances of students having to isolate. We hope that we will be able to run these opportunities next year.

In the interim, please continue to read Mrs Baxter’s section of the newsletter which lists the universities which will be running online (virtual) open days.

Study Skills – Deep Breaks

Author Cal Newport published a terrific book titled Deep Work: Rules for Success in a Distracted World. As we all know, distraction is a hurdle that all students face as they are preparing for examinations or writing assessment. While we advocate that students need to complete 1.5 – 2.5 hours per night in homework (subject load dependent), it is not beneficial to complete this work in huge chunks. In a further newsletter I will talk about strategies to address working through independent learning smartly. However, what if there was a way to manage a break in your study with minimal distraction? Cal Newport refers to this as Deep Breaks. The following is excellent guidance from a previously posted blog post by the author:

Deep work requires you to focus intensely on a demanding task. But few can maintain peak cognitive intensity for more than an hour or so without some sort of relief.

This relief is necessary.

Most types of breaks you might take in this situation will wrench your attention away from the task at hand and leave you with a thick slather of attention residue.

If you’re careful, however, it’s possible to take a so-called deep break which will allow your mind a chance to regroup and recharge without impeding your ability to quickly ramp back up your concentration.

Anyone who regularly succeeds in long deep work sessions is almost certainly someone skilled at deploying deep breaks to keep the session going without burning out or losing focus.

There’s no single description of what constitutes a deep break, but here are some useful ideas from my own experience:

• Deep breaks should not turn your attention to a target that might generate a professional or social obligation that you cannot completely fulfill during the break (e.g., glancing at an email inbox or social media feed).
• Deep breaks should not turn your attention to a target that your mind associates with time-consuming distraction rituals (e.g., many people have a set “cycle” of distracting web sites they visit when they surf that has become so ingrained that looking at one site sends their mind the message it’s time to look at them all).
• Deep breaks should not turn your attention to a related, but not quite the same, professional task (e.g., if you’re trying to write a report, and you turn your attention to quickly editing an unrelated report).
• Deep breaks should not turn your attention to a topic that is complicated, stressful and/or something that will sometime soon need a lot of your attention.
• Deep breaks should not usually last more than 10 – 15 minutes, with some exceptions, such as for meals.

Breaks that avoid the above warnings should probably be okay. For example, here are some of my standard deep break activities:

• Taking a short walk to get more water while trying to just observe my surroundings.
• Day dreaming about the good things that could come from succeeding with the deep work task at hand
• Summarising to myself what I already know about the task at hand and what I’m trying to accomplish.
• Reading a book chapter or magazine article that has nothing to do with the deep task at hand.
• Complete a household task or short errand.

Students are encouraged to develop independent study timetable to support the work they need to complete outside of school. I challenge students to minimise and manage their distraction and schedule in deep breaks as well.

Cal Newport: On Deep Breaks https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2016/09/14/on-deep-breaks/

Communication and Pastoral Concerns
Throughout the year, parents are encouraged to communicate with their child’s subject teachers as an initial point of contact for any pastoral or academic matters. For further matters, please contact me through the College Office or by email matthew.hodge@twb.catholic.edu.au

Matt Hodge

Assistant Principal Senior Years