Dancing their way to the top
Schools
Maddison Moore and Stephanie Oxenham did plenty of fancy footwork during Year 12 to graduate as the top two students of St Mary’s College.
Both are dancers and spent much of their final year at school involved in extra curricular dance trainings and competitions. However, through good time management and hard work, they still managed to achieve outstanding academic results.
Dux of the college with an ATAR of 99.05, Maddison enjoys dancing in jazz and contemporary styles but has also branched out into cheer leading in recent times. In Year 12 she studied physics, maths methods, accounting and legal studies, receiving a merit for information processing and publishing.
“The weekly training and weekend competitions consumed some of my time outside school,” she told The Southern Cross. “Whilst this proved inconvenient during times I had a lot of work due, I would say that commitment and hobbies outside of school are crucial to maintaining a healthy balance and positive attitude towards school.”
Maddison has been accepted into a Bachelor of Science (forensic and analytical science) at Flinders University but is still unsure if she will begin the course or defer for a year – either way she intends to keep dancing.
St Mary’s proxime accessit Stephanie, who achieved an ATAR of 98.65 and a merit for information processing and publishing, was also “highly committed” to dancing during Year 12 and was at the dance studio “six or seven days a week”.
“Realistically I only completed about six hours of homework on my one day off a week because I made the most of all my studies.
“For all the future Year 12s, the rumours aren’t true – I’m living proof that you can do all subjects with no exams and still get an amazing ATAR; just work hard and pick your best subjects,” she said.
Last year Stephanie studied communication products photography, visual arts design, English and religion, also completing information processing and publishing and dance in Year 11. She hopes to one day work as a graphic designer and this year will head to Uni SA to study Communication Design.
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