By Mayce Bayato  

 

I started Year 12 during the bushfire season which included having exams near ongoing fires. Our grade now has 6 months left together till we graduate high school. We never got to have that last sports carnival, muck up day or school photo. With the uncertainty of how the rest of the school year will end...

I also don’t know how my high school experience will end.

HSC is challenging enough with exams and assignments that impact our ATAR. We’ve been using google classroom to receive work and to communicate with our teachers. Online Schooling is different from regular classes even though our teachers already posted most of our content online. It's a more independent styled learning with more textbook and comprehension tasks. We have lost discussion time and they have given us more content to make up for it. It’s been a difficult change for many students as well as teachers. The transition has made it harder to learn, but we’re all still hanging on and trying our best to get through the HSC.

Recently the government mentioned that schools will begin face to face learning on the 11th of May, Week 3, Term 2. However, it is still unclear how classes are supposed to work. Having one module left to learn and Trials (end of year exams) in August, we are unsure of how this circumstance will affect our final marks.

The hardest change is not seeing my friends but I’m thankful that I was able to share the Gospel with them the week before school closed. After coming back from the Argentina Mission’s Trip, LAUNCH had this ‘friend challenge’. We were each given 5 tracts to give to 5 different friends. Little did I know that a week later we would be transitioning to online schooling. During a difficult year, hearing my friends ask about Jesus was amazing. Their hearts have softened to hearing the Gospel and it's been great being able to talk to them about Him. I pray that through this time we can be better witnesses to our lost friends and continue to spread Joy in the midst of a pandemic.

Another really encouraging thing has been seeing my Christian friends who also share their faith on social media platforms.

Despite having so much uncertainty with school and the stresses of it all, I remain hopeful that we will see each other again… and graduate. This wasn’t how the class of 2020 expected to spend their last year of High School. But I know God is working through it all...

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Psalms 46:1