Jessica Clemente

Hello! My name is Jessica Clemente and I graduated from Bethlehem earlier this year.

If I had to give some advice to current/future Year 12 students it would be to celebrate the little things! Success is success and an achievement is an achievement no matter how trivial you think it may seem. It’s really easy to become overwhelmed with stress and I found that celebrating or at least acknowledging how much I had accomplished so far really helped me stay grounded and motivated. I would often use to-do lists, breaking down an assignment or a goal I had into little steps, and honestly the satisfaction of ticking something off my list was (usually) enough ‘celebration’ or ‘acknowledgement’ to inspire me to continue on with my study. Assessment and Exam blocks can also be quite draining and exhausting, so having a little ‘celebration routine’ to do after exams or handing in tasks definitely helped me stay sane during those stressful time periods too.

Second thing is to believe in yourself and your abilities. If you believe that you deserve that extra mark or are unsure why your task was marked in a specific way (within reason, please don’t be arrogant or unreasonable!), respectfully ask your teachers about it and get extra feedback. Remember that they are there to help you and want to see you succeed. The worst thing that can happen is that you learn from your mistakes and that really isn’t terrible at all. When you do receive feedback, I encourage you to keep a little ‘Mistakes Book’ where you write down the questions you got wrong and complete them again with your new feedback in mind. It may seem tedious in the moment but it turns out to be an amazing resource to look at before Trials and your HSC exams.

All in all, life isn’t linear and your Year 12 experience won’t be either. When you’re having a bit of a hard time or an off-day it is almost guaranteed that someone else is too, so you can be sure that you aren’t alone in your struggles. Never forget how crazily capable you are though; you all have already come this far and you all have the ability to go so much further.

Be kind to one another and all the best,

Jess :)