As some students prepare to return to face-to-face teaching this week, Catherine McAuley College year 12 student Tania Hutchinson tells us what she is going to miss most about learning from home.

As we come to the end of remote learning and prepare to enter back into a normal school routine, I feel I really am going to miss this new-found way of independent learning.

I've loved being able to create my own work schedule that's based around what I need to do and not one that's timetabled out by classes.

I've been much more productive in the last few months, some days even finishing by lunch time or earlier because I've gotten my work up to date.

Read more: Bendigo students welcome planned return date for classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic

It's been a great insight into the independence we will have to experience in university and life, where we must be responsible for our own learning and goals.

There are other perks I will miss, such as being able to eat food whenever I want, staying in my PJs all day, attending classes from the comfort of my bed or the couch, and being able to have a bit of a sleep in.

While it has been a struggle not seeing friends and losing that social interaction at school, I feel like this has been a perfect experience, especially for year 12s.

I can't speak for everybody when I say this, but I feel it's given us a bit of a break from the stressful, high-paced school life of year 12s.

We've been able to do some of our SACs in a much less stressful environment and we've had a lot more free time to ourselves, away from school.

It will be a little difficult to get back to a normal school routine after just beginning to get into a good remote learning routine, but it's nice to know we're all in the same boat.

We've really had to come together in our friendship groups and classes to ensure we've all been safe and avoiding any stressful situations that come with remote learning.

We'll continue to stick together and brave whatever the rest of the year holds for us.

Fellow Catherine McAuley College year 12 student Charlotte Brook has also shared her thoughts.

I have finished my last week of remote learning with the return to school next week. What I am going to miss about learning at home is the ability to sleep in later. When I am usually at school, I can have nights where I am up to midnight or later studying. So doing remote learning, I have been able to get extra sleep.

With remote learning, I could focus extra time on a subject if needed instead of having to rush through information to move on to the next set of content.

I will miss spending my days in trackies instead of my winter school uniform that I will be wearing again, but I do find I can concentrate better when in school uniform because it puts me in the mindset for school. I have had times where I put my blazer over my year 12 rugby jumper.

Remote learning has brought innovative ways to be taught, has built independence, and increased responsibility for my own education, but our teachers are committed to the possibility of keeping the different methods for teaching.

Usually, most of my SACs are within days of each other, or even multiple SACs on the same day. SACs completed at home have been more spaced out, allowing extra time to study and I have seen an improvement in my results.

Although, it does feel like I have more work during remote learning because during my online classes we are given the work to complete. But we are not actually doing it while we are online with the teachers.

It has been amusing to watch some teachers learning new technology skills, as in some of my classes at school we don't usually use our laptops much. But now we have used our laptops for all of the work. At least once a week in a class, the teacher accidentally leaves because they are trying to switch to a document to show us.

I am happy about the return to school because I no longer have to scan then upload all of my work to online platforms to be corrected. I prefer to hand-write, which has made it harder to get my work sent to teachers for correction. But my teachers have been supportive and understanding of the process.

Remote learning has been the longest the Class of 2020 has ever been away from school since we started our school journey in 2008. So we may have to make difficult adjustments as we settle back into a school routine.

Would you like to reflect on your remote learning experience? Send your story to addynews@bendigoadvertiser.com.au