Starting Year 12 VCE: Use Your Year 11 Feedback to Plan Ahead

For each subject, it helps to have:

• two or three recent marked assessments with your teacher's comments, ideally from late in the year
• your end-of-year exam or your notes on its feedback, which you can add later if it isn't back yet
• anything you've been given for the start of Unit 3, such as holiday work

Your lowest mark is an easy place to look first, but the comments can explain what happened behind it. You're looking for something you can point to in the work itself, such as an explanation that stops short or a method you could follow in class but couldn't start on your own. It's worth noting one thing that's working too, such as clearly set-out solutions, so you keep doing it.

You'll often have more than one comment in a subject, so the first job is choosing. A comment that turns up on more than one piece of work is a good one to pick, because it can point to a habit rather than a one-off slip. When two seem just as important, the one you can most easily picture practising each week tends to be easier to keep up. One per subject keeps the plan small enough to last through Term 1.

Then think about what you'd do differently on the next question like it. For a comment about running out of time, the questions you didn't finish can show where the time went: sometimes the slow part is choosing how to start, and writing faster won't fix that. If a comment doesn't make sense to you, you can ask the teacher who wrote it, with a quick word before the holidays or an email with the work attached, so you're practising what they actually meant.

Each subject's plan fits on a page of a notebook or a note on your phone. You don't need to do every subject in one sitting, so you can start with the one where the next step is clearest.

The weekly action works best when you can tell at the end of the week whether you did it. You can tick off writing a paragraph, but not “improve English”. In a maths subject, it might be retrying a few questions you got wrong without the worked solutions, then marking where you still get stuck.

Once each subject has its action, our weekly study planner can help you fit them into a realistic week around school, sport and work, and you can print or save it.

If your teacher can see the improvement, you can choose a new priority for that subject. If not, you can change the action, perhaps by making it smaller, rather than adding more practice on top.

Your Year 12 teacher may not be the one who wrote your Year 11 comments, but they know what Unit 3 starts with. You can bring your plan to a lesson early in Term 1 and ask whether your priority matters for the first topic, and their answer can shape what you practise from the first weeks.

When you keep getting the same feedback

You might rewrite paragraph after paragraph and still get the same comment, or you might still need your notes open to use a maths method from Year 11. Your subject teacher can often go through it with you outside class, and your VCE coordinator can tell you what extra help your school offers. One-to-one tutoring is another option. Tutors at TMJ Tutoring follow your school program, at home or online, and you'll speak with your tutor before the first session, so you can bring your plan and the marked work it came from.

Your Units 3 and 4 results count towards study scores. A study score is your result for a whole subject. It's a number out of 50, but not a percentage: it shows how you went compared with everyone doing that subject in the same year. The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), which runs the VCE, calculates each one. The Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC) then scales them, adjusting for how strong the competition is in each subject, and combines your scaled scores into your ATAR. Our guide to study scores, scaling and the ATAR follows one student's results all the way through.

SACs, short for school-assessed coursework, are the tests, essays and reports you do at school during the year.

If you'd like a refresher on how units and S and N results work, our guide to starting Year 11 covers them.

In many subjects Unit 3 builds on what you covered in Units 1 and 2, so practising it now can help with your first Unit 3 SACs. Some schools start Unit 3 teaching early, with a short head-start program in the last weeks of Year 11. Nothing you do in it counts towards your study scores, but it's the start of the real Unit 3 course.

VCAA has already set the main dates for 2027. As well as the exams, there's the General Achievement Test (GAT) in June, which most students haven't sat before. The questions at the end explain it.

Each subject's exact exam day comes later, in VCAA's exam timetable. Final results arrive on Thursday 9 December 2027.

You don't need Year 12 worked out before it starts, and the rest of the year can build from the plan you've made.

Should I study over the summer holidays?

A little. Holiday work your school has set is the part to keep up, and you could try your plan's weekly action now and then. The rest of summer can be a real break, because the friends, sleep and interests that carry you through Year 12 are worth looking after from the start.

For the days study is weighing on you, our study stress check-in is a short, private way to see how study is affecting you, with ideas to try and where to find support.

What is the GAT, and do I need to prepare for it?

You don't need to prepare: VCAA says no additional study is required. The General Achievement Test is a paper test of general knowledge and skills in writing, numeracy and reasoning, sat in two sessions on one day. You're expected to sit it if you're doing Units 3 and 4 of a VCE subject. It isn't a subject of its own, so it doesn't earn a study score.

VCAA uses your GAT results as one check on your exam marks, and that check can raise a score or leave it as it is, but won't lower it. Your GAT results also matter when illness or something serious stops you sitting an exam or affects you during it. You can then apply for a Derived Examination Score, which VCAA calculates partly from them.

What happens if I'm sick for a SAC?

Your school can arrange another chance to complete it. A SAC missed through illness or another serious cause can be rescheduled, or the school can give you extra time or set another task of the same type, such as a test on the same topic with different questions. The school decides which. Its assessment rules set out how to ask, and your school gives you those rules at the start of the year. Your teacher or VCE coordinator is the person to contact, as soon as possible and before the SAC if you know you'll miss it.

Can I still change a subject?

Yes, it's possible. VCAA sets no prerequisites for starting a subject at Unit 3, though VCAA's outlines for some subjects recommend doing Units 1 and 2 first. Your school decides whether a change fits its timetable. Units 3 and 4 run as a pair across the year, so a change in the first weeks of Term 1 leaves you the most time to catch up. Your VCE coordinator can talk through whether it suits you, and our guide to choosing VCE subjects can help you prepare for that conversation.

When do I apply for university or TAFE?

Applications for courses starting in 2028 open during Year 12, and the dates will appear on VTAC's key dates page. Some courses take applications through VTAC and others directly through the university or TAFE. VTAC CourseSearch lists the application method under “How to apply”. For a course that isn't listed, the institution's own website will say. Your careers adviser can go through it with you during the year.

We checked these official sources on 4 November 2026.