Advice from 2024 Student Leaders: Meet Lilly

From the Deputy, Academic Strategy

Ms Jenny Pollock | Lilly P, 2024 Vice Captain | 20 November 2024

“Being a Student Leader in an era of ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE“

At the Prefects Retreat in Week 10 of Term 3, I interviewed 3 of our 2024 Student Leaders so that they could offer advice to our Student Leaders for 2025 on how to balance the commitments of leadership while maintaining effective learning in their HSC coursework. Below is the advice offered by one of the students. Over the next few articles, I will share the advice provided by the others.

Lilly P had the responsibility of being Vice School Captain this year. Despite the time commitments required of this leadership role, she still managed to juggle successfully her leadership and study commitments and achieve academic excellence across her subject areas. She came 1st in English Extension 1 & English Extension 2, 2nd in History Extension,  3rd in Ancient History, and 4th In English Advanced.

I asked Lilly what planning & time management strategies she used to enable herself to be so successful academically while keeping up with her responsibilities as Vice-Captain.

Lilly’s response was:

I know that a lot of people are able to effectively manage their screen time and their study, but i really struggle with self restraint. So I did delete TikTok periodically throughout the year, during exam times and the same for Instagram. This really helped me, as well as giving my phone to my mum and telling her not to give it back to me until a certain time.

I also use Notion, which i think i may have said in an assembly once before, but whenever I am stressed about how much I have to get done, it calms my nerves a lot to just block out times to do them in Notion on a timetable, and then i can go about it in an organised way. During the Trial Exams I got a membership to Forestville library, as I am someone who really struggles to manage my distractions at home. The library can get busy during exam time but day to day it is usually relatively quiet, and because I am someone who likes to study at night it's been super useful.

This tip wasn't really a strategy but I cannot stress enough that you really need to sleep. For one of my Trial exams I barely got any sleep the night before because I felt really under-prepared, and then I bombed that exam because my brain was in shambles. During term time, for me it was very unrealistic that I would be going to bed early as I do a lot of extension subjects which go until 5:30pm, and then I ended up staying up really late because I had so much to do. But during exam blocks this wasn’t the case and really after 11pm your brain kind of clocks off and you need to go to bed, especially if you have a morning exam. Your brain is like a sponge and it needs those 8 hours to absorb all the information you learnt the day before → I didn't really believe this but during trials sleep actually helped so much and I remember being surprised how much I remembered from the day before simply because my brain had time to process it rather than being overloaded. With all this being said, just because you might think your a night owl, sleep catches up to all of us and so it's really important that you try and get all your study done early in the morning or straight after school so that you’re not procrastinating to stay up late and do it. I fell into this trap and it led to lots of stress.

I then asked Lilly what LEARNING@STLUKE’S strategies proved to be particularly useful for her  in undertaking the HSC this year in addition to the responsibility of being a Vice Captain.

Lilly’s response was :

Be Resourceful → using your teachers, peers for help and also getting rest and nourishment. Your food really has a big impact on your mood.

Be Resilient → persevering through hard exam blocks and when there is a lot on. You will be proud you made it out the other side and even though it is hard to see sometimes, you will be okay and you can only control a certain number of things.

A really good quote that I think is important, (and i have it as my lock screen), is "you can't control the wind but you can adjust the sail” and that kind of sums up Year 12 and leadership. Inevitably you are going to get a few bad grades and set backs, and you will feel stressed, but how you respond to it makes all the difference.

My 3rd question to Lilly was “what did you find most challenging about being a Vice Captain at St Luke’s, in an “era of academic excellence”?

Lilly’s response was:

I think it really all comes back to time management. I would say it was challenging when we had a big day coming up that required lots of organization and planning, and was also close to due dates etc. This is when i would recommend the most just planning out your days and setting aside times to do things, and also just going to the library because you will be pressured to get things done. I think on a leadership basis, texting the group chat and just saying like Oh lets meet at this time to discuss and put people in charge of different things can be super helpful because you know what is expected of you. And of course, if you find that you are really struggling to stay on top of things, talk to a friend who does not have as much on their plate, or  a teacher and they will be happy to help you out. Your academics should come first and things can always be pushed back if you're under the pump.

A big thank you to Lilly for sharing her experiences. I hope the advice will provide some strategies for a study- life balance for many of our students.