Year 12 Practice Exams 2026
What Year 12 students and families need to know about the practice exam week of Tuesday 25 – Friday 28 August 2026: why attendance is compulsory, how to prepare using VCAA exam navigators and past papers, exam-day rules, and how feedback is delivered in the week beginning Monday 12 October.
Practice exams are the single most valuable preparation our Year 12 students do for the VCAA examinations. For four days from Tuesday 25 to Friday 28 August 2026, every Unit 3–4 student sits full-length exams under VCAA conditions in Mary MacKillop Hall — same timing, same rules, same silence. The exams are written or selected by our teachers to mirror the current VCAA design, and each student receives a marked paper and one-to-one feedback in the first fortnight of Term 4. This page explains the arrangements; the full session-by-session timetable is on Exam Timetables 2026.
Attendance is compulsory
Practice exams are part of the Year 12 program and attendance is required for every timetabled exam, including for Year 11 students accelerating a Unit 3–4 study.
- Normal classes do not run for Year 12 during the week. Students attend only for their exams and may otherwise study at home or in VCE Study Hall (Senior Study Centre, open 8:00am–5:00pm).
- Students sign in at the Senior Office on arrival and sign out when leaving the campus.
- Illness: a parent phones the Senior Office on (03) 9555 0100 before 9:00am and a medical certificate is provided. The exam is sat at Redemption in the first week of Term 4 (Tuesday 6 or Thursday 8 October, 3:30pm) so that feedback is still possible.
- Work, driving lessons, appointments and family travel are not accepted reasons for absence. A practice exam missed without a medical certificate is recorded on the Year 12 Final Report as Not Sat.
The College treats the week as a serious rehearsal. Students who arrive late, bring phones into the venue or breach exam rules will be spoken to by Mr Whelan and Mr Tom Brennan, exactly as VCAA would treat it.
Preparing — use the exam navigators
VCAA publishes an exam navigator for every study: a short document that shows the structure of the exam, the number and type of questions, marks per section, time allocation and what materials are allowed. Reading the navigator before the practice exam is the best five minutes of preparation a student can do. Navigators are linked on the Learning Hub → Pathways → VCE Exams page along with:
- the past five years of VCAA exams and examiners' reports for each study, and the approved formula sheets and data books;
- teacher-recorded "walkthrough" videos for English text response and the Mathematics exams;
- a revision timetable template covering the ten days before the week.
Recommended approach: complete at least two past papers per subject under timed conditions in the fortnight before, mark them against the examiners' report, and bring a list of questions for the feedback interview.
Exam-day essentials
| Arrive | 15 minutes before the session; line up silently outside the Hall. Session 1 exams start at 9:00am; Session 2 at 1:30pm |
| Uniform | Full winter uniform including blazer. Jerseys are not worn during practice exams |
| Bring | Student ID card; clear pencil case or plastic sleeve; blue or black pens, pencils, eraser, ruler; clear water bottle with the label removed; approved calculator where permitted (cleared of stored notes); approved dictionary for Italian |
| Leave at home or in locker | Phone, smartwatch, earbuds, laptop, notes, correction fluid. Phones found in the venue are held by the Senior Office until 3:25pm and the incident recorded |
| Reading time | 15 minutes (10 minutes for some studies, as per the navigator) — no writing |
| Leaving | Not in the first 30 minutes or the last 15 minutes |
| Food | Eat before the session; no food in the venue. Lunch break between sessions is 12:15pm–1:15pm; The Harbour Café is open |
Students with approved special provision (extra time, rest breaks, separate room, use of a computer) sit in the Library seminar rooms with the same arrangements they will have from VCAA. If you believe your child should have provision and it is not yet in place, contact Mr Sam Devlin this week — VCAA applications for the November exams closed in February, but school-based practice arrangements can still be made.
Marking and feedback
Papers are marked by subject teachers during Weeks 8–9 of Term 3 and the September holidays using VCAA-style marking schemes. Results are not SACs and do not contribute to the study score; they are reported to students as a raw mark and an indicative grade so that they can see what the November exam will feel like.
Feedback week begins Monday 12 October 2026 (Term 4, Week 2):
- Marked papers are returned in class on Monday 12 October with the marking scheme.
- Each student has a 15-minute individual feedback interview in each subject during that week, booked through the Learning Hub, to identify two or three specific areas to work on before the VCAA exams.
- Mr Whelan meets students whose results are significantly below their SAC performance to plan support, and Mrs Jenny Marsh is available to talk through pathway implications where relevant.
- A Year 12 parent update summarising the week, without individual results, is emailed on Friday 16 October. Individual results are visible to parents on the Learning Hub from Monday 12 October.
After practice exams
The six weeks between practice exams and Wednesday 28 October 2026, when VCAA written exams begin with English, are the most productive study period of the year. Year 12 classes continue until Friday 23 October; the Final Assembly and Graduation Mass are on Tuesday 20 October. VCE Study Hall runs throughout the VCAA exam period, and teachers offer holiday revision sessions from Monday 21 to Thursday 24 September (timetable on the Learning Hub). See Study Skills and Homework Club, the VCE Handbook and Year 12 Graduation and Valedictory.
Looking after yourself
Four days of exams is tiring. Sleep, regular meals and some exercise matter more than an extra hour of cramming. Mr Chris Nguyen visits Study Hall each day at 12:30pm and can be seen without an appointment at the Wellbeing Centre — see Wellbeing and Counselling.
Questions about the practice exam week go to Mr James Whelan via the Senior Office on (03) 9555 0100 or by Learning Hub message.