Secondary School News | August 2026
Middle School
Hi Middle School,
We are excited to officially introduce Miss Carrie Croft as our Middle School Coordinator for Distance Education! She is looking forward to supporting our Middle School students and families as they navigate their learning journey throughout the remainder of the year and into the future.
In case you missed the announcement in Middle School Hub regarding there has been an update to how permissions are managed for Middle School Hub Discussions and messaging other students in Canvas inbox. To ensure a safe, respectful environment, all participating students and supervisors must review and sign our Code of Conduct agreement .
Link to Form to Submit Agreement - must be accessed from student @acc.edu.au account
Access to forums and student-to-student messaging will be updated once your completed agreement form is processed.
On the topic of online etiquette and safety. Please note that all Google Meets organized by the college will always have a teacher present. If you notice your student participating in a Google Meet without an ACC staff member, please be aware that this is an unsupervised student session and not an official school-organized event. Along with this, please note that taking photos, videos, or audio recordings of staff or students must never be taken without explicit, prior consent. The use of AI tools or digital editing software to alter, synthesize, or generate misleading or non-consensual media (such as deepfakes or modified images/voices) of others is strictly prohibited.
God Bless,
Carrie Croft, Vaughan Wright & Mandy Towle
Senior School
Year 10
Hi Year 10s,
Exams are coming up and revision is happening, so here is a list of helpful tips to make sure students and supervisors have as little stress on exam day as possible.
Tip 1: Pray. Pray with your student during revision and at the beginning of the exam, and a quiet prayer for them while they are doing the exam doesn't hurt either. Each exam is published 30 minutes before the start time for downloading and printing the examination, take a moment to pray with your student to ask God for calm, focus and the capacity to demonstrate what the student has learned, it is a powerful way to start an exam, especially when anxiety is high.
Tip 2: Make sure you know the day and time. Exams are typically only rescheduled for reasons such as illness or misadventure, and these should be requested through the Request For Extension form on Canvas. Make sure your child has that day and time in the schedule cleared.
Tip 3: Have a supervisor organised. Your student must be supervised while completing the exam. Preferably this would be their official supervisor, however in an emergency anyone over the age of 18 can sign off that they were the supervisor during the exam. Make sure you have your child's supervisor organised early.
Tip 4: Planning/Perusal Time: In a number of subject exams we have either Planning or Perusal time at the beginning of exams.
Planning: time allocated in an assessment when students may read through the exam and write out any planning of their responses they have on a separate piece of paper. They may not write in the response section of the exam during this time. The Planning document is not to be included in their submission, it is for their use only and will not be marked or assessed in any way.
Perusal: time allocated in an assessment to reading items and tasks and associated assessment materials; no writing is allowed; students may not make notes and may not commence responding to the assessment in the response space/book
Make sure you know which, if either, apply for the exam your student is completing - it will be written on the cover page of the exam itself.
Tip 5. Have a distraction-free area (or as close as you can get). They should not have access to their computer, to any textbooks, to their phone, or any other resources not specified in the exam resources. The closer we can get to an empty room with just a desk, chair, writing implements and exam paper the better. Is this always possible with large families when the supervisor also has to watch younger children? No, but the fewer distractions your child has, the better.
Tip 6. Have plenty of paper and ink. These are written exams. We usually suggest standard printing paper for printing off the exam, and lined paper for planning/spare. The exam document will contain lined sections for responses, but it is good to have some extra lined paper just in case. This will help your student keep their responses organised. All exam responses must be written, not typed (unless an AARA adjustment has been approved beforehand).
Tip 7. Test your printer and scanner. So often printers run out of ink half way through printing an exam, or the scanner suddenly has a meltdown and starts downloading 45 gigabytes worth of updates. Get all of these things checked in the days leading up to the exam. Check:
Do we have enough printer ink and paper? Do we know how our scanner works? Which way up will the page scan? Do we know how to scan all the pages so they make one document?
Tip 8. Ask questions. This is very important: the Supervisor must be the one who communicates questions to the teacher. If a student sends an email request for clarification or calls, then the integrity of their examination and supervision is automatically in question and a breach of the Supervision Declaration. Staff will be contactable during the exam time regularly checking for messages from parents – Their contact details can be found on the Home page of the relevant course. In the circumstance where the subject teacher is away that day you can contact us directly. Don’t suffer through, email us and we will get back to you asap. (morde10ylc@acc.edu.au )
Tip 9. Stay Calm. Things happen. The Internet breaks down, printers malfunction, people make mistakes on the day (including us). We are fairly understanding coordinators, and can be flexible when needed.
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Happy to chat if you have any queries or concerns, or if you feel that we can be better supporting your student in any way.
God bless,
Simon Nicholls and Joyce Hres
Year 10 Coordinator - Distance Education
Year 11
I know one way to feel better about exams. Pretend that exams is short for egg sandwiches, which are always very satisfying and relatively simple to prepare. But let’s be honest, preparing for exams isn’t exactly simple, and sometimes the results are far from satisfying. What to do?
Treat each day this term as an opportunity to level up. You can improve every day, even if just a little, in knowledge, skills, and understanding of your subjects.
Connect with your teachers. Seriously! My top performing students are the ones who hassle me the most, emailing me regularly with questions about the text or task.
Identify what is holding you back, whether that is poor time management, a loaded schedule, or a lack of belief in yourself or of God working in you.
Make a plan. Ensure you have accessed the exam timetable on the Senior Hub. Identify any clashes and make the necessary arrangements. Block out time in the weeks leading up to your finals to study with intention and purpose.
Submit your practice exams where applicable and take note of your teachers’ feedback. Practice exams are an amazing way to ease the pressure!
Like our Year 10 coordinators said above, don’t forget to pray. Pour out all your worries and ask for all the grace you can get! Give thanks for all that God has given you to help you get to this point. Then his peace will guard your hearts and minds. That’s a promise.
Caleb White
Year 11 Coordinator - Distance Education