How your HSC works

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1. How your HSC works
2. Step 1 – Getting ready
3. Step 2 – We’re ready for you
4. Step 3 – The people, the papers, the processes
5. Step 4 – Your school assessment marks
6. Step 5 – The exams
7. Step 6 – Marking
8. Step 7 – Moderating assessment marks
9. Step 8 – Judges apply the standards
10. Step 9 – Finally: your results

Image: Julie Butterworth, Pymble Ladies’ College (detail) ARTEXPRESS, HSC 2008

Step 1 – Getting ready

How do you become ready for the HSC? There are some important things you must do.

You must choose your HSC subjects. There are some rules you need to follow – for example, everybody must do at least two units of English – but the rest is up to you and your school. Some people find the choices easy, others find it harder, but our advice is to choose courses that you are good at, interested in and may use in the future. No school can offer every HSC subject to its students, so be prepared to make some compromises if you have to. You can view syllabuses and course descriptions on the Board’s website and read about university entry requirements on the Universities Admissions Centre’s website.

You must complete the HSC: All My Own Work (AMOW) program in ethical scholarship. Your school will arrange this and help you to understand your rights and responsibilities in the HSC. AMOW prepares you for senior study, where you will do more independent learning and your teachers will expect more of your research and originality. Your school will tell us when you have completed AMOW and your student file on our system will then open to let you enrol in the HSC.

Before you can begin the HSC you must enrol as we will need to confirm your details before you begin Year 11. A lot of the business of your enrolment occurs on the secure connection between your school and the Board’s computers, Schools Online. You give information to your school, and your school checks details then enters them on our system via Schools Online. Later, you will be asked to check that there were no mistakes in what your school sent to us. Accidents sometimes happen in your school’s data entry, and every year the Board hears from students who need to correct their home addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and, most importantly, the courses they study. You can check your details via Students Online. You need your Student Number and HSC PIN to log in.

If your school has accidentally made an error in your details, only you can tell them it is wrong and get them to fix it – so make sure you check your records carefully every time your school asks you.

Finally, you need to complete the Preliminary year of your HSC, which for almost everyone will be Year 11.

Useful links

• Studying for the NSW Higher School Certificate
• HSC Information for Year 10 Students and Parents
• The HSC: All My Own Work program is designed to help Higher School Certificate students to follow the principles and practices of good scholarship.
• The complete list of HSC syllabuses
• The Board of Studies provides Statements of Equivalence (to New South Wales school level awards) for secondary education qualifications from other Australian states and territories or from overseas countries.
• Supporting students with special education needs
• The Board of Studies has developed Life Skills courses for Stage 6 in each broad area of learning.
• Disability Provisions