Volunteer students from Macquarie University are about to embark on the third year of the School Tutoring Program with senior students from Marsden High School, West Ryde. Each Tuesday afternoon during Terms 2 and 3 students from Macquarie University meet with about 30 Marsden HSC students to provide free tutoring.
The Marsden students identify the subjects that they would like additional help with and are then matched by the coordinators Sandie Rudman, Manager of the Macquarie Transition program and Sheryn Symons, Head Teacher Teaching and Learning at Marsden High School.
Involvement in the program allows the students from Macquarie to earn points towards their Global Leadership Program. The Macquarie students take on a mentoring role as well as a tutoring role with the Marsden students. The program has proved to be very beneficial as it allows the Marsden students to ask their tutors questions about university courses in addition to improving their HSC results.
Marsden High School had a record number of students qualify for university for 2008 and according to Ms Symons the School Tutoring program is one of the reasons that the students were so successful. It was also interesting to note that a number of the students in the program gained entry to their chosen university courses by as little as a 2 point margin. She believes the tutoring program was instrumental in helping the students realise their potential and aspire to the more demanding courses.
Furthermore, Ms Symonds believes that the outstanding academic performance can be direct attributed to the program. Below is a summary of Marsden’s 2007 outstanding academic results.
• 83% of students who applied for university were offered places. • 14% of students who applied for a university course received a UAI of 90 or above • 22% of students who applied for university course received a UAI of 80 or above • The most popular university courses include: Law, International Studies, Medical Science, Engineering, Education, Business & Commerce • Of the students who were accepted into university, most (24%) went to Macquarie University