Does writing notes actually help?
For spesh i don't bother, chem I kind of do, english and lit a bit but I find doing what the task demands of you : exam/essay is better for me.... if i don't do well then I just consolidate by looking back at my notes.
To be honest I don't know.
For English I find it nice to have all my arguments and evidence summarized. Making notes helped me raise my expositories from an A to an A+ when I was doing practice ones for the SAC. IMO making notes for English takes care of ideas.
For Spesh though, it doesn't really help that much. I wasted heaps of time last year making really thorough notes for Methods, but this year for Spesh I haven't spent nearly as much time. If I had to compare, I've probably used less than 20% of the time I used for Methods notes on Spesh notes. Yet my SAC results are better. I didn't touch Spesh at all for 3 weeks before the last SAC and still did quite well.
As for Physics and Chem...it's my way of teaching myself the concepts. Our school hasn't finished the Physics course so I had to take it upon myself to make notes for the remaining unfinished portion.
Same for Uni Maths. I don't really listen to the teacher most of the time so I have to teach myself.