Student-Led Pastoral Care: Year 11 Study Skills Lessons

This term, Year 11 students were given the chance to design and deliver their own Wellbeing lessons, developing both leadership and presentation skills. The students involved attended meetings to create ideas and activities that we believe would make Wellbeing learning enjoyable and engaging.

Our wellbeing lessons in Term 2 explored different study skills, a topic that students found relevant and applicable. We were tasked to create mini lessons in a ‘carousel’ lesson format, where students visited the presenting groups for 15 minutes each, making it a collaborative, efficient and fun way to learn valuable skills. Each group prepared a mini lesson that included an introduction to the study skill, how to apply it and an activity to let students try themselves.

Despite the challenge of organising and delivering the lessons, Year 11 students were engaged and open minded when learning the new study skills.

"Subject Specific Study Skills”, presented by Kadyn

To make the session interactive, Kadyn designed worksheets that encouraged students to apply strategies directly to English and Humanities subjects. For English, they created their own character profiles to deepen literary analysis, while in more logic-based subjects (e.g. science), students completed flow charts to strengthen problem-solving skills. The workshop highlighted how different approaches can be tailored to each subject, giving students practical tools to enhance their learning.

“Understanding Procrastination”, presented by Alexandra and Madeleine

This lesson covered procrastination, outlining the definition, examples and misconceptions of the topic. The presentation discussed solutions, such as “chunking” or using the pomodoro system with rewards. To apply these solutions and solidify student's understanding, activities were assigned to help students tackle procrastination.

“Everyday Study Habits When You’re Tired”, presented by Sabrina and Sidney

The presentation shared practical ways to recharge and stay productive after long school days. It covered simple strategies like resetting with water and smart snacks, using Pomodoro cycles, taking movement breaks or power naps to keep energy levels steady. The highlight was the Feynman Technique: teaching back what you’ve learnt in your own words. This method not only deepens understanding but also locks knowledge into long-term memory, making it the ultimate study hack when energy is low.  Students were advised to jot down notes during the presentation – this helped them understand the habits better and gave them an edge in the Kahoot game.

“Psychology of Learning”, presented by Jeffrie

The psychology of learning guided students through activities that revealed how memory systems and thinking skills operate in practice. Students were asked to recall random versus patterned sequences, memorize a hierarchy of thinking skills, and reflect on their note-taking strategies. It was a meaningful experience to see students realize that remembering only sits at the bottom of the hierarchy of thinking skills, and that deeper learning requires understanding, application, and creation. The top tip for students was to handwrite notes whenever possible, as it engages multiple parts of the brain and strengthens memorization, making note-taking more effective.

“Active Recall”, presented by Hazel and Luka

This presentation explored how to use active recall to retrieve information from memory instead of passively reviewing. Active recall techniques boost long-term memory significantly more than when rereading texts or highlighting notes. A popular method of active recall is ‘blurting’, which was attempted by the students. Students were instructed to review their notes for 3 minutes, then write down everything they can remember onto paper for 3 minutes. Afterwards, they had to check their answers and find what information they were missing. This activity is easy to do and highly beneficial for strengthening neural pathways to increase memorization.

Hazel Cheong, Year 11