Diane Tran HSC 2021

ATAR 99.10

Top Achiever – 5th in NSW out of 9015 students for Community and Family Studies

NSW All Rounder

First in the Archdiocese of Sydney for Community and Family Studies and
French Beginners

NSW Distinguished Achiever

My name’s Diane and I graduated in 2021. Indisputably, the spectacle of 2021 threw many unprecedented challenges towards our year group. However, despite all of this uncertainty, I can say with certainty that the teaching strategies used at MMCC genuinely pushed me to perform a lot better than I thought I would.

I think what kept me motivated even when I was burning out (which was almost for half of the year) was the fact that the teachers would always come to class with a distinct lesson plan that built on the previous lesson. Lessons would range from the modelling of responses to constructive feedback from peers — with this same range continuing throughout the entirety of remote learning. Lessons would be adjusted towards the classes needs, and teachers were even willing to devote their extra time to explain content, past paper questions and solutions. The effort that the teachers put in towards teaching the content – whether it was on a PowerPoint or the whiteboard – never died down, even when everything felt incredibly overwhelming.

Personally, the individual feedback that I received from my teachers is what guided me the most. I can vividly remember scrolling through dozens of comments from my teachers leading up to the HSC on each of my documents and feeling a sense of panic because I felt that there was so much to work on. However, I came to realise that all feedback is good feedback, regardless of how daunting it seems.

Additionally, before each assessment, teachers would unpack the criteria, ensuring that the entire class knew what was expected. Despite our stress and tears, our teachers instructed us through the vast syllabi and helped us to overcome each of the many challenges thrown by NESA, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it!

Ultimately, the connection and dynamic in each classroom at MMCC is what truly pushed us all to do so well. Cheers to the Class of 2021 and all of our incredible teachers!