Narooma High School students start HSC exams

The first exam for students around NSW was English Paper 1 and at Narooma there were 38 students sitting the exam out of a total of 42 students in Year 12.

The students are all back on Tuesday to complete English Paper 2 with more creative writing and three essays part of that exam. The HSC exams continue through until November 7 with the final exam being Drama.

Acting principal Lyn Macauley said she thought the students were all ready to do their best.

“They’ve all worked very hard to prepare themselves with many coming to school to do workshops and other brush up on their subjects with their teachers,” she said. “I would also like to thank all the HSC teachers at Narooma High School.”

The Narooma News has selected three students to follow through the exam period and we hope to bring you regular updates on how Sarah Schaefer, Tahlia Arnold and Teig Wilton are doing. Here are their thoughts after completing the first exam of this year’s HSC.

Sarah has applied to the Australian National University in Canberra hoping to do a flexible double degree in political science and international relations.

“My ultimate goal is to become a foreign correspondent reporting from overseas and even going into conflict zones,” she said.

She said the thought she had done well in the English exam as English Extension II one of her “specialty subjects” that she scored the pre-exam assessment rank of first place. She also scored a second place assessment rank in legal studies.

Her exam preparations leading into the HSC had involved six or seven hours of study each day.

“I’ve literally taken over the kitchen table at home and it's just been covered with my English stuff, but after tomorrow, I plan on burning all my English notes,” she said. 

Sarah's next exam after Tuesday’s English Paper 2 was ancient history next Tuesday.

Tahlia has already received early acceptance into the University of Wollongong where she plans to obtain a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Psychology. The early acceptance had taken pressure off her doing the exams.

Both Sarah and Tahlia had a head start on some their colleagues as they both completed accelerated mathematics, which meant they sat their maths HSC exam last year while in Year 11.

Tahlia also received a pre-exam assessment rank of first place in modern history and second in Japanese.

“I’m pretty strong in all my subjects but really like history and English, so I expect to do well in those,” she said.

As a member of the local Koori community, Tahlia is hoping she can use her studies in psychology to come back to the Narooma area and be involved with other young Aboriginal people in areas such as counselling.

This week will be challenging as she had English Paper 2 tomorrow, Tuesday, October 17, followed by Japanese and then modern history on Friday.

Her study strategy had been to get up early and start studying straight away to get into the studying frame of mind for the rest of the day, although not one for “cramming” she also made sure to take plenty of breaks.

Teig has been in the news as he has already been accepted into the development side of the Cronulla Sharks rugby league team and has been attending Endeavour Sports High School in Sydney.

But he decided to do his preparations and sit his actual exams back at his old school of Narooma High.

“It's just more comfortable at home and it's good to have the support of my family,” he said.

Even though he has already been accepted into the Sharks team where he will start off in the Under 20s development side that stars pre-season training on November 7, he is keeping his eye on the bigger picture and longer term.

He plans on completing a degree at university and while not a 100 per cent sure, he is thinking he will study something along the lines of sports medicine.

“I want to keep my options open for the future,” he said.

Asked about the English exam he had just completed, he said it was “pretty tough” but that it was a good feeling to have the first exam out of the way and now be in the mindset to complete the others.