Over the past 12 months we have been developing a St Margaret’s College Smart Study Programme. After a small scale pilot in 2025, and work with schools in Australia who run similar programmes, we are delivering this to our Year 11 students weekly in 2026.
In each session, we aim to give the girls tools for effective study and an understanding of how the brain works best; useful skills and knowledge for both in class and for independent study. The goal is for girls to enjoy greater academic buoyancy and access to high utility strategies which affect learning positively.
In the first presentation of the year all students were surveyed about how they viewed themselves as a learner. This provides baseline data for measuring the efficacy of the programme. The girls were also given, as a place to start, three start of lesson ‘Power Moves’; beginning the lesson with only what is required on their desk (helping with focus), recalling at least one thing that they learned from the previous day’s lesson as they arrive to class (activating neural pathways and retrieval) and, as each lesson begins, noting the teacher-stated learning intention for the lesson (harnessing attention).
Learn more about our Senior School curriculum here.
