Scholarship provides recognition and monetary reward to top students in their last year of schooling.

Scholarship exams enable candidates to be assessed against challenging standards, and are demanding for the most able candidates in each subject.

Scholarship candidates are expected to demonstrate high-level critical thinking, abstraction and generalisation, and to integrate, synthesise and apply knowledge, skills, understanding and ideas to complex situations.

All students at OGHS are eligible to enter Scholarship, usually in Year 13. The benefits of studying for Scholarship are increased confidence going into Level 3 examinations and university, individualised Scholarship tutorials and preparation, development of flexibility and integration in thinking, development of skills for higher level thinking and research at tertiary level. It is usual for students to enter one to three Scholarship subjects; more than this usually proves unmanageable.

Entering Scholarship in turn requires commitment from students to attend tutorials both at school and, where offered, at the Otago University city-wide tutorial programme. It also requires students to read widely, to prepare and submit material to teachers and tutors for marking, and to apply feedback given. There is a charge of $30 per subject entered for Scholarship or $102.20 for international students. Further information will follow about tutorials and entries.

What you can do to encourage younger learners (Years 9 to 12) to prepare for success in Scholarship in Year 13:

Engage in wide reading from an early age – particularly fiction novels and poetry. Students should read daily and have a love of reading good books.

Read newspapers (the newspaper is available daily in the school library and newspapers are available online).

Encourage academic discussions at home.

Expose students to new and cutting edge ideas and research e.g. New Scientist, Time magazines.

Discuss current affairs, politics and issues at home and with their peers.

Encourage students to have points of view and to be able to argue their case convincingly.

Encourage an understanding of other cultures and religions. The World Focus supplement in Monday’s ODT and good foreign films can be helpful.

Visit art galleries, museums, libraries to broaden students’ ideas and experiences.

Encourage students to use thinking strategies such as the Habits of Mind, mind-mapping and other thinking maps, Blooms Taxonomy and De Bono’s Six Hats. These will be appearing in the school newsletter throughout the year.

Year 13 students have time to think about entering Scholarship and what subjects they might do. Citywide tutorials start in Term Two and school-based tutorials vary as to when they occur - and some will happen during I-Time in the latter part of next term. Talk to your teacher or Head of Department if you are unsure. Be brave, don’t underestimate yourself and there is nothing to lose. The guaranteed outcome is enrichment of your learning and thinking. Also remember that only successful results are recorded by NZQA in Scholarship.

Bridget Davidson

Assistant Principal