Each night your son will complete a prep session. Every night follows a similar format. This article will give you an overview of what we do in prep and the purpose of it.

Each year level completes prep in a different location around the Hostel. Year 9 and 10 are in the Prep Room, Year 11 students are in the Dining Room and our Year 12 and 13 students are allowed to do it in their own space as long as they are working to expectations. 

Each session of prep will begin with a 15-minute session of reading. This is an exceptionally important aspect of what we do. I really can't stress to you enough the importance of reading. This webpage provides a short summary of some of the benefits. Our big push this year is for your son to read a minimum of one book per term. We have a wide variety of books available in the Hostel and students are also able to borrow books from the school library. We would also love for you to be involved in your son's reading, so if you have any books that you think your son would enjoy or if he has any books at home, make sure that he brings them in. 

Once our short session of reading is complete prep switches to the 'real work'. At this point, your son should be working on tasks that have been set from school. This could be assessments or homework depending on the year level of your son. At Hamilton Boys' High School, homework and assessments are a regular occurrence and not completing these has consequences. If there is anything that your son does not understand, he is always able to ask for support from the staff member who is on duty or the Year 13 student that comes over from Grove to help. 

If your son does not have work to complete we encourage them first to go through their classwork and do a quick review. This is one of the reasons that we highly recommend purchasing the homework diary from the school shop. This review can be as simple as writing one or two short sentences about what they covered in class that day. The diagram below shows you the importance of continually reviewing new knowledge. Doing something as simple as recapping what they covered during the day makes it far more likely for your son to maintain this knowledge in the long term. 

Once they finish this review they should either go back to reading for the remainder of the session or they can ask the staff member that is on duty for a sudoku or a crossword to complete. 

Prep is a vital part of day-to-day life in Argyle House and as is the case with many other aspects of hostel life we have high standards. If you have any questions about prep please do not hesitate to get in touch.