Margaret River Senior High School graduate Jaxon Deighton earns top marks after ATAR exams

A foray into the mechatronic engineering industry is one step closer for a local high school graduate after hours and hours of hard work paid off in a big way. Margaret River Senior High School graduate Jaxon Deighton passed his final Year 12 exams with flying colours, earning him a final ATAR score of 97.40. It comes after several high school graduates in the South West — from Bunbury to Busselton and Manjimup to Margaret River — achieved ATAR scores of 95.00 or higher. Jaxon said he was pretty happy with his final result after managing to improve on his projected ATAR score before the exams. “I was most excited about my English result because I really struggled with that and needed a passing grade to be able to get into university,” he said. “Once I got my result I was pretty happy with it.” Jaxon said navigating the ATAR pathway for his final schooling years had its ups and downs with varying amounts of assignments to complete. “Sometimes you had five tests in one week and none the next week,” he said. “It was just about organising and spending your time wisely. “Yeah it was stressful with all the tears, late-night hours and hard studying but I felt like I managed to get through it OK. “At the start of Year 11 I was sort of winging it but by the time I got to Year 12 I found a really good way to just do two hours of studying every night making sure I remembered everything, so that by the time I had to hand an assignment in I had already done it two weeks prior. “It just made my schedule a lot more clear and easy to go to.” Jaxon said he plans to go straight to university, where he intends on studying a double degree in mechatronic engineering and computer science at Curtin University. “I’ve always been interested in AIs and robots so looking at getting that double degree; it was the best way for me to get into that industry,” he said. Jaxon advises other high school students to pick the courses they like to make studying a bit more enjoyable. “ATAR requires you to put in a tonne of hours — not like six hours once every weekend but one hour each night is perfect,” he said. “If you do the subjects you like and continuously put in an hour every night, you’ll still be sane afterwards.”