BlogStudyHow 99+ ATAR Scorer Anika Maintained Her Co-Curricular Activities During Year 12

How 99+ ATAR Scorer Anika Maintained Her Co-Curricular Activities During Year 12

It’s definitely true that Year 12 can be super stressful, but that shouldn’t mean that you should compromise on the co-curricular activities that fill your life with excitement and purpose!

High school is a fantastic time to develop a variety of skills, so don’t feel as though you need to let go of the activities you love to get solid marks. We had a chat with Anika, who received a fantastic ATAR of 99.3 all the while maintaining her extracurriculars!

So, if you’re someone heading into your senior year and are worried about how you’re going to maintain your extracurriculars, then this guide is the right one for you.

Let’s jump right into it! 

Tip 1: Learn how to organise your time effectively! 
Tip 2: Use your co-curricular activities as a reward based system 
Tip 3: Stay happy and balanced 
Tip 4: Planning and prioritisation is key! 
Tip 5: Having a mentor is also helpful!

Tip 1: Learn how to organise your time effectively! 

One of the biggest tricks to succeeding in Year 12 is knowing how to organise your time. It is your first priority to get all the work and study required for school to be completed, but it is also of utmost importance to schedule in time for the extra-curricular activities that you enjoy doing! 

You should also be scheduling in some downtime where you get to take a breather, allowing for you to maintain a healthy balance in your life. 

Beating Procrastination

It may appear as though having many activities on your plate can be stressful and difficult to manage, but on the contrary, filling your schedule up and having a super organised, time-based schedule can actually help beat procrastination and the things that stop you from doing your work when it needs to be done! 

Like Anika said, “The more time that I had in the day to study, the more I would procrastinate… so, I made myself busy and used extracurricular activities as rewards in between my study blocks.”

Managing Your Time Better

Flowing on from the idea of defeating procrastination, good time organisation can also serve to help you grab hold of every spare moment, also known as transition moments, that you have to get in some extra study for school, or some extra information for an upcoming test.

This, again, allows you to use your time productively and in a manner that is fulfilling rather than falling into the cycle of procrastination and stress when your work doesn’t get complete. 

Anika shared, “If I had competitions on the weekends – which I often did – I would study in the car or in the horse truck. I just became so good at finding spare moments to study wherever I was.” 

Tip 2: Use your co-curricular activities as a reward based system 

Studying for hours on end can be boring sometimes, and not studying can make you feel guilty because the HSC is nearing! So, how do you resolve this dilemma using your extracurriculars?

It is a really efficient use of your time to create a reward system, or a reward loop using your co-curricular activities. What do we mean by this?

Well, let’s say that you have allocated a 2 hour study session, and have organised a 3-hour session to partake in an extra-curricular activity on a certain day. You can view this session as not only a time to develop your skills, but a ‘break’ from study where you can take your mind off of whatever subject that you’re worried about and immerse yourself in the activity.

This reward system approach helps you stay happy and keep a good study-life balance — something that every HSC student needs in their life!

This is a technique that Anika herself used: “I definitely used them [extracurricular activities] as a reward based system.”

Want to get ahead and ace the first term of Year 12? We’ve put together the ultimate guide for you here.

Tip 3: Stay happy and balanced

As you may have noticed, this is a point that has been coming up quite a bit. To have efficient study and productivity, you need to ensure that your life is in a good balance! 

It is important to know your own limits and know your priorities, so that if at any point you feel overwhelmed, you have the ability to take control of your schedule and cut down on things that seem unnecessary burdens at the time.

Anika would do this, where, during key exam periods, she would cut down on socialising, or on one of her extracurricular activities so that she could focus on her schoolwork, remaining less stressed and thus, staying happy and feeling balanced in her life. 

As Anika said, “A lot of people think that you have to drop it [social activities], but you don’t have to drop it. [The time taken by those activities] does go down a bit and that’s just something you have to accept.”  

I pretty much always had Friday nights off unless it was leading up to an exam.”

Tip 4: Planning and prioritisation is key! 

As mentioned before, organisation is super important, and a key element of staying organised is planning!

Planning out each and every day with what you would like to accomplish, and when you would like to accomplish these things helps you stay on top of your work and keep accountable for the things that you might not have had the chance to complete! 

A concept linked to effective planning is prioritisation!

You should be able to look at your list of tasks and understand the consequences of not completing each. Then, you should list them in order of most to least important so that you can plan in accordance with urgency.

Tip 5: Having a mentor is also helpful!

As previously mentioned, it is important to know when you feel overwhelmed and cut down on the tasks that you have on your plate. However, another great way to gain support when you feel overwhelmed is by having a mentor!

A mentor can be anyone that knows the ins and outs of the HSC, and the experience that you are undergoing, and can guide you, put things into perspective and be a great support network when things get stressful.

Anika herself had a great mentor from Art of Smart, Rowan, who helped her through the essentials of maintaining her extra-curriculars and studying in an efficient manner! 

“Rowan taught me the reward based system of studying and we sat down and went through when I could work, when I could not work and do something else,” said Anika. 

For some extra support with study and balance, work with one of our Rouse Hill tutors, Blacktown tutors or Parramatta tutors!

Looking for some extra help with study and managing co-curricular activities?

We pride ourselves on our inspirational coaches and mentors!

We offer tutoring and mentoring for Years K-12 in a variety of subjects, with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or at one of our state of the art campuses in Hornsby or the Hills!

To find out more and get started with an inspirational tutor and mentor get in touch today! 

Give us a ring on 1300 267 888, email us at [email protected] or check us out on TikTok!


Yasmin Hasan is a current first year psychology student at UNSW. She loves making art, playing piano or reading in her spare time. She graduated from high school in 2021 so her memories of her own high school experience are still quite fresh. She would love to use her own experiences to help other students build their confidence and improve in their academics!

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