Consistency is genuinely one of the most important things in Y12. You don’t have to be doing three hours of study EVERY single night, nor should you be, as you should develop a solid understanding of the content if you chip away at it regularly. That’s essentially what I did, and I don’t think I did three hours of study on a single occasion during the year (save for in the lead-up to exams)!!
My subjects this year were English, FM, BM and Psych (with Legal in Y11), and I found this load to be quite manageable. You’re definitely in a better position doing five, as opposed to six, subjects next year, and I’m sure that you’ll find it somewhat easier than Y11 due to a lessened workload.
For English, I recommend that you read each text at least once during the summer holidays, to gain a basic understanding of the plot, characters’ motivations, setting, etc. (though I’m sure that you’re already aware of this). It wasn’t until the April holidays that I reread and started properly working with my first text (Station Eleven), because we had our AA SAC and creative response in T1. This mightn’t be the way that your school operates, but I think it would be good to get your first English SACs out of the way, and then focus on your first exam text. I went through the novel and marked important quotes and then, as I went through the book, I transferred these to a Word document and analysed them briefly. This certainly helped me when we began to study the text in class, as I had already kind of developed my own unique interpretation, whereas others had barely given it any thought. It also really helped me when I initially started writing essays, as I had an extensive quote bank to draw from and some analysis to support. Even if you begin this process these coming holidays, I’m sure that your confidence will be bolstered. If I’m honest, I didn’t really know how to write VCE English essays at the beginning of this year, but my skills were relatively sound come October 30. The way that your communication and analytical skills can improve within the span of ten months is honestly quite remarkable.
With my other subjects, I didn’t really use the textbooks all that much either. I mainly relied upon Edrolo, and other such resources that were available to me. I’m a rural kid, whose school is low-ranking, so my resources weren’t plentiful in a manner that private schools’ are; I think that I was just resourceful myself. I used past VCAA questions throughout the year to study, as opposed to those found within the textbook, and I couldn’t recommend this enough, particularly for maths. Most of my class worked solely from the textbook, and when our teacher gave everyone the 2017 exam in September, they didn’t know how to answer the questions, because of the disparity in VCAA’s and those found in the textbook. I don’t know if that’s the same for Methods, but that could be something to be aware of!!
Sorry for the excessive length of the above advice, hopefully it helps in some regard!!