Sophie

91 in Advanced English

Oscar

90 in Advanced English

Amber

91 in Advanced English, an ATAR of 91

Catherine

89 in Advanced English, an ATAR of 96.55

Annabelle

90 in English Extension 1, an ATAR of 92.75

Each of these students achieved their chosen paths through their commitment to their studies.

We provide the following services:

Upper Primary (Year 4 to Year 6)
- English / Mathematics / Sciences Exam Skills
- Remedial Assistance – English / Mathematics / Sciences
- Preparation for scholarship and selective school examinations

This January 2012 we are able to assist you with preparing for the Selective Schools Test.
- Reading Comprehension
- General Ability
- Mathematics Test
- Written Expression Test

The scholarship tests – the Cooperative Scholarship Testing Program (CSTP), the Scholarship Selection Test (SST), the Australian Cooperative Entry Program (ACEP) and the Educational Assessment Australia Placement Test (EAA) – are of a similar format to the NSW Selective High Schools Test. All contain a Reading Comprehension test (under different names), a Mathematics Test and a Written Expression Test. The duration of these papers varies from test to test, but are generally between 35 and 45 minutes.

These seminars will prepare you for your upcoming trials and HSC examinations.

They consist of:

• 2 or 3 hour group seminars
• 2 hour mock exam (at any time in the holiday period in our offices)
• Optional 1 hour feedback lesson

Please look at the seminar timetable at reception or on our website http://www.smartmoves.com.au/

In these seminars, in small groups of up to ten students, you will learn not only how to interpret the syllabus and the content of your course, but the strategy of study and how to prepare for an exam, how to recognise and handle stress, as well as how to effectively manage your time before the HSC.

Paper 1 Seminars) are three hours long and look at Belonging, Creative Writing, Short Answer Responses and Paper 2 Seminars last for 2 hours and explore the modules and their demands, how to find and examine related texts and essay writing skills.

Call us now on 9416 4222 to book your place!

Improve Exam Results with Proven Techniques for the HSC

Walter Sprinkle is available for interview during school holidays January 11th – 28th.

Sydney, June 2011: Students across the country are already preparing for end-of-year exams with school holidays no exception. Former high school teacher and tutor, Walter Sprinkle, gives students the winning exam edge through a technique known as the Peaceful Place System. Based on veteran Australian trainer, Sandy MacGregor’s, popular mind focusing technique, the Peaceful Place System helps students release stress and feel in control during challenging exams. Some of his students have improved results by up to 60%.

Most students feel overwhelmed by exams with many spending hours sitting in their room bouncing a ball against the wall rather than working. The Peaceful Place System has helped many students learn how to focus and improve their results.

“It’s given my students the ability to change their thinking and develop effective study habits,” begins Walter Sprinkle. “Using their Peaceful Place helps them relax and release stress and this in turn helps them to clear their minds. They can then write better essays, solve science and maths questions and complete their exams in the time allocated. This motivates my students to face every new question and exam more confidently and without fear.”

The system shows students how to create their peaceful place in 15 minutes each day. Once the technique is honed, they can access calm in 30 seconds. Rather than becoming overwhelmed during exams, students know how to clear their minds and focus on the task at hand.

Based on brain science, the system allows students to quickly and easily find calm. It also uses visualisation (used by Olympic athletes) to help students set and achieve their goals. Walter can share results enjoyed by his students. Visit www.yourpeacefulplace.com.au

About Walter Sprinkle
For 20 years, Walter Sprinkle taught high school English and History in Armidale, Wee Waa, Tamworth and Sydney including Father Chris Riley’s Youth Off The Streets. For the past 8 years, he’s run a successful tutoring program, Smart Moves Coaching Australia ®.

Walter Sprinkle is available for interview – (02) 9416 4222 / (04) 1863 8448

As I write, an extremely civilized education system is in action, clicking and whirring, a sophisticated machine built to convince you that the answer to this question is ‘they don’t.’

There is not much that is sinister about that machine. We are lucky to have it: by any international standard, Australia has a very good education system, public and private. We argue about how it works (Are standardised tests and benchmarks good or bad?), and where our kids will fit in it (Co-ed or single sex? Public or Private?), but ultimately, we agree on one thing: we want our kids to get the best education possible. Our schools do their best to give that to them.

But, as anyone who has studied, taught, or been a parent knows, education is hard.

That point is not new: even the great French essayist Michel de Montaigne said, in the sixteenth century, ‘the greatest and most important difficulty of human science is the education of children.’ This from a man who mastered Latin before he even began school, a genius who achieved great public and private success, but was nonetheless willing to admit that he struggled, and was deeply unhappy, at school. Montaigne was writing at about the time when classroom schooling, rather than private tutoring, became the normal method of educating children.

It is difficult to imagine, in this age of standardised tests, bustling classrooms, ‘student engagement’ and collective ‘outcomes’, that education was once an intensely personal experience between a single teacher and a single student, in which one teacher took personal responsibility for the entire education of their student, and was there, all the time, to answer the student’s questions and explain the things their student did not understand. It was not a perfect system – a student stuck with a harsh, stern tutor was unable to escape into another class for the next subject – but it had obvious benefits.

For one, the student could be encouraged to talk rather than just listen: it is better to have a student explain what they know before we try to teach them. To teach without understanding (and listening to) the pupil is, as Montaigne put it, like trying to pour knowledge into a funnel. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Now imagine trying to pour knowledge into fifteen or twenty funnels, all at once. And not all of them fit together: some are different shapes, some are bouncing around, some are pointed away from you. That’s how the school system tends to work. Classrooms would be complete chaos if every student was encouraged to constantly explain what they know. A good teacher ‘pours’ more knowledge into his students than he spills; a bad one doesn’t give them anything at all. But even the best teacher has trouble knowing what each and every student in their class does and does not understand. As
Montaigne said, if we ‘undertake, with one and the same lesson …to instruct several students of differing and unequal capacities, we are infinitely mistaken.’ A tutor, on the other hand, can let the student talk, get to know how they think, and quickly figure out exactly what an individual student needs. Then he can teach it in a way that the student will understand, because he knows the student.

But education is about more than knowledge. It is about skills, and attitudes, that allow us to use our knowledge. The modern curriculum is very focused upon skills, but skills can actually be very hard to teach in a classroom, because each student’s needs are different. Besides, teachers have huge amounts of content to teach – how will they find time to cater to each student’s individual needs? So out come the funnels, and the students that can’t teach themselves the skills get left behind. Often, the best a student gets are a few hurried comments on an essay, or corrections on a test. Worse, changing teacher year-to-year means even the little feedback they get will often be inconsistent, even with the best teachers.

A tutor can keep track of – and improve – their student’s skills, correcting problems and supporting them, sometimes over many years of their education. That’s not just for those students who are falling behind, either – it’s also good for those who are in the middle and want to be ahead, and those who are ahead and want to go beyond what their class is doing. Anyone can benefit greatly from some additional, personal attention to their education.

The most important skill in education is the ability to think critically, for yourself: Montaigne himself was the first to use the metaphor of regurgitation to show how useless repeated knowledge is when it comes without deeper understanding and consideration. Critical thinking, then, is essential to a good education. But isn’t that a matter of attitude?

We tend not to think critically about something unless we are motivated to do so. But how do you motivate an entire class? The best teachers at schools can motivate most of their students some of the time, and some of their students most of the time. Plus, some students are naturally motivated. Some aren’t. How do we stop some falling through the cracks?

Tutoring can help a student’s attitudes to education by giving them a personal, human environment, but also one where they can’t hide in the crowd. One-on-one, a well-chosen tutor can generate rapport – a positive, encouraging relationship – with a student, more easily than a teacher can. But seeing a tutor, one-on-one, also reminds a student that the responsibility for their education is ultimately theirs: there’s no hiding behind classmates, parents, or excuses. In other words, a good tutor can help give a student the encouragement, resources, and discipline to become an effective and capable person.

For, as Montaigne understood, the purpose of education is not just to produce a student with abilities, but to produce fully-developed people. We should judge a student’s education, he says, ‘not by the testimony of his memory, but by that of his life.’ Personal attention helps students perform better at school, but it also helps them develop into mature, effective, capable people. And that, surely, is what you want from an education.

Schools can provide a great education. But tutoring provides a personal one.

Who should attend?
Year 12 students.

Seminars on offer:

These seminars run based on demand, so if you would like to sit a seminar not listed, please inquire at reception.

Dates:
Please inquire at reception for the proposed seminar dates.

What will I learn?
In these seminars, small groups of up to eight students will learn the strategy of study and how to prepare for an exam, common mistakes of the year 12 student, HSC exam formats, how to understand and use the syllabus, as well as the content and skills of their subjects.

Where:
Smart Moves Coaching Australia ®
Level 1, 43 Hill St
Roseville NSW

Cost:
$150 for the seminar and optional mock exam, including the cost of marking the exam. We do offer a multiple attendance discount, meaning that if you’d like to attend more than one session, all subsequent January seminars are discounted to $100.

BOOK NOW!
Call Smart Moves Coaching Australia ® Reception on 9416 4222 to book your place.

Who should attend?
Year 12 students.

Dates:
Beginning January 2012. One seminar consists of two consecutive mornings, each with a two hour session:

What do they consist of?

What will I learn?
In these seminars you will learn to understand and use the HSC syllabus, what “Belonging” means and how to write a Belonging essay. Further, you will learn the strategy of study and how to prepare for an exam, how to recognise and handle stress, as well as how to effectively manage your time before an exam.

Where:
Smart Moves Coaching Australia ®
Level 1, 43 Hill St
Roseville NSW

Cost:
$150 for both days and the optional exam. We do offer a multiple attendance discount, meaning that all subsequent January seminars are discounted to $100.

BOOK NOW!
Call Smart Moves Coaching Australia ® Reception on 9416 4222 to book your place.

3 hours includes: hands-on exam response techniques, review, questions and answers, tips, skills, short answer response, style and format.

Learn your creative writing, develop a personal essay response plan with thesis.

At the end of each term, students often find themselves lost – overwhelmed by content and trying to keep pace. Student tend to neglect their course related skills as the content increases.
Smart Moves holiday seminars are designed to provide students with an opportunity to review the course content, with direction in mind. Students gain a better understanding of the subject requirements with the skill building a major focus of seminars.

Thank you to all who attended or were involved in the running of these HSC Seminars – Walter B. Sprinkle, Director at SMCA.

‘Well, we teach in a cooperative learning style and this AOS Seminar Summary uses this method/information. It is an example of our Personal response learning style…’

Seminar Plan for Paper I AOS

Day 1 – Paper One

Then, again, if time permits, a practice timed essay (students would need to bring their texts).

Seminar Paper 2 Modules

Day 2 – Paper 2