- Each state’s and each student’s experience with online learning has been different
- Most Year Twelve students feel they’ve experienced a loss in either a social or educational capacity during their last year of school
- Graduation ceremonies are now at risk of being cancelled
Senior year is a milestone for any high-school student; it’s final lap of a 12-year marathon. With the end so close in sight, it’s hard not to celebrate and make memories as you enjoy the last moments of a huge portion on your life.
However, Corona Virus has completely changed the Year-12 experience. Not only are graduating students under added stress, they’re missing out on the memory-making and lesson-learning experience. Lockdown has meant little-to-no social interaction for the majority of people, and only so much banter can occur during a Zoom meeting.
That’s assuming students are attending online classes. Although senior students are constantly stressed about their marks, many of them are struggling to find the motivation to attend online lessons, despite the obvious detriment to their learning.
Each state has had a different experience in lockdown, but most student experiences have the same undertone: COVID, in one way or another, has taken away from their Year 12 experience.
Year Twelve in Queensland
Leah Musolino
When discussing the impact of COVID-19 on Year 12 students, Leah highlighted the detrimental effect online learning has had on students.
“I believe COVID-19 has affected the senior experience immensely.”
“Year 12 is already stressful as it is, but with a global pandemic going on, being isolated in our homes, not able to socialise, having to transfer everything onto online/zoom has added a whole lot more stress onto us.”
“Some of my classmates liked doing school online, but I know it mentally and emotionally drained people, which unmotivated many of us.”
“Even just with the little things such as the normal school routines, no more whole school chapels/assemblies or assemblies at all and potentially no one being able to watch our prom or graduation at the end of the year has definitely saddened many people.”
Nathanael Couch
Nathanael initially had a light-hearted response to online learning, viewing it as a break. However, he quickly realised his attitude could take a toll on his final grades.
“To start off with, my opinion of isolation was time off school, but then when I considered it’s my final year, I thought that it was going to have a big impact on my school grades.”
“(Our school) was well organised and I thought that this experience didn’t take away from our learning to much, apart from the social aspect of it.”
Overall, Nathanael has a positive outlook on the unique online-learning experience.
“I do think it has been a hectic year and I am proud that I have been one of the graduates to experience all the milestones in throughout schooling.”
Taylah Hoffman
Taylah sees the positives and negatives to the current situation. While some students thrived with online learning, others fell behind.
“(Our school) handled the situation quite well with implementing zoom sessions and following the regular time table but in a distance education type arrangement.”
“This was beneficial for some students as the style of independent learning allowed some students to work ahead and be self-paced as well as more concentrated away from distractions in a class room environment.”
“On the down side, some students found themselves more distracted, finding excuses to not log in to zoom meetings and not having face-to-face learning was definitely a struggle for some students who require that type of attention in order to reach their full potential.”
“Due to corona the QCAA (Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority) also decided to remove one internal assessment from each subject in attempt to reduce student stress during this pandemic which has definitely been a benefit in terms of mental health and work load.”
Riley Barton
Riley had a really positive experience with online learning, finding he was able to achieve more at home that in the classroom.
“I really didn’t mind doing school from home because I could focus better and get my work done.”
“We did lose one internal assessment of the three initially which I’m very glad about because the assessments were quite long and tough, now we have more time to study for the external exam which is absolutely awesome!”
However, Riley is disappointed about the missed time with friends.
“I feel like this year has gone so quick and obviously because of corona we couldn’t go on excursions and missed some quality time that we could’ve spent with friends which really sucks.”
Rory Antonio
Rory’s experience has been very stressful. With the removal of one assessment, she feels there’s now added pressure to do well in others.
“Lockdown has been pretty rough especially since we are the first year to be doing the ATAR system.”
“I’d say the biggest struggle was when QCAA decided to take away one internal assessment for every subject.”
“This gives us less of an opportunity to perform our best in all subjects at school.”
“There is more stress to do well now than before Corona!”
Year Twelve in New South Wales
Bailey Wakefield
Bailey had the added pressure of helping siblings while undertaking online learning, which he feels has taken away from his usual work quality.
“It’s definitely not how I thought my year would go, studying at home made things really hard as I have 5 siblings who were home at the same time.”
“They are all younger and needed my assistance with their work too, so I couldn’t commit to my own studies as I had duties to tend to at home; dad had work so I had to step up.”
“Things were really stressful and honestly still are. I’m concerned about my marks and the obvious drop in my quality.”
“At this point, school has become more of a burden.”
Lucas Charlton
Lucas had a, mostly, positive experience with online learning. He felt that the change didn’t drastically affect his education but did take away from the Year-Twelve experience.
“Lockdown took away from the experiences that we were expecting from high school.”
“Luckily I don’t feel like I got set back too far from missing out on school.”
Karrah Cisco
Karrah found that while studying at home was a nice change, there were parts of the learning process that online learning couldn’t replicate.
“(Lockdown has) mostly affected my sciences (chemistry and biology) because we had very limited time to practise the experiments for our assessments, and my depth study has been moved back twice for chemistry.”
“Online class just sucked because it was slow and I couldn’t ask questions properly, but it was nice working at home.”
Now, Karrah is having to face the possible loss of another milestone.
“At the moment we aren’t getting any of our grad ceremonies or sporting events which is sad.”
One major difference between the Queensland and New South Wales experience in online learning, is that the QCAA removed one major assessment from each subject in an attempt to reduce the stress put on senior students. They are also the first graduating to experience Queensland’s new ATAR system.
Overall, each of the students feel that, either in a social or educational capacity, Covid has taken away from their senior experience.
Now they’re just hoping the pandemic will subside in time for their graduation ceremonies will go ahead.