The elite Sydney schools where more than 1 in 4 students have special HSC exam provisions
Elite Sydney private schools are securing special exam provisions for up to half their HSC students, while some public schools recorded zero applications. Search the list.
More than one in four HSC students are gaining special considerations including rest breaks and extra time in their final exams at dozens of elite Sydney independent schools, as experts raise concerns about the equity of the disability scheme.
Statewide, nearly 11,300 students accessed disability provisions through the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) for the 2024 HSC exams, or almost one in six members of the total cohort – a 60 per cent increase since 2019.
Applications for provisions are submitted by schools on behalf of their students for physical and psychological conditions, and require evidence from health professionals as well teachers’ testimonies.
Students with vision impairment may request an exam reader, while a student who breaks their arm before the exams will be given a writer to transcribe their responses.
However, rest breaks - up to five minutes per half-hour of exam time - have increased more sharply than any other provision over the past five years, rising nearly 85 per cent.
NESA does not publish figures based on students’ diagnoses, but Western Sydney psychiatrist Dr Tanveer Ahmed said breaks and additional time are more frequently recommended for kids with anxiety, autism and ADHD.
“Part of the growth is linked to the increasing growth of NDIS … now one in seven boys between the ages of five to seven are on the NDIS, and that starts flowing through into high school,” he said.
“Another key reason is the pandemic … (which) drove growth in all mental health diagnoses, but particularly diagnosis of autism and ADHD.”
Excluding special schools for students with additional needs, and those with fewer than 50 HSC candidates, high-profile Sydney private schools had the highest proportion of students with disability provisions last year.
At SCECGS Redlands in Cremorne, where parents pay more than $44,500 for Year 12 tuition alone, nearly half of its 76 HSC students were either fully or partially approved for provisions.
St Andrew’s Cathedral School in the Sydney CBD had 43.6 per cent of its students approved for disability provisions.
Both schools declined to comment.
More than a third of HSC students at all-girls Catholic school St Vincent’s College, Cranbrook School in wealthy Bellevue Hill, and the International Grammar School in Ultimo were approved for provisions, and none of their applications were declined.
Northern Beaches Christian School in Terrey Hills, MLC School in Burwood, Emanuel School in Randwick and Ravenswood School for Girls in Gordon all applied for provisions for at least 30 per cent of their HSC cohorts.
Holsworthy High School and Cammeraygal High School were the only comprehensive public schools to have more than 30 per cent apply for provisions, and both schools had at least one application knocked back.
Meanwhile, not a single student applied for provisions at Belmore Boys High School or Liverpool Boys High School in Sydney’s southwest, and both Cabramatta and Prairiewood high schools had just five applications among their 200-plus HSC students.
Islamic schools Al-Faisal College in Auburn, Malek Fahd in Greenacre were the lone independent schools to have fewer than five per cent of their students apply for provisions.
Dr Ahmed, who is regularly required to sign off on disability provisions for his patients, said social stigma around mental health is a significant barrier in “certain ethnic and socio-economic groups … who are more likely to see … problems as behavioural and not treatable”.
“Merely the act of having to get into a psychologist or psychiatrist … is an access issue – there’s costs involved, and waiting lists are sometimes quite long,” he added.
Education expert and UTS Professor of Social Impact Rachel Wilson the application process is “administratively onerous” for already over-stretched public schools, and needs to be streamlined.
“We know that nearly 70 per cent of students with disability are in public schools,” she said.
“It could not be clearer that there is a grave injustice occurring here.”
While the factors that lead to private school students accessing special provisions more often than their public school peers are “complex”, Dr Wilson said, “from an epidemiological perspective, it smells very fishy”.
“If schools have doctors and psychologists on staff - and many of the elite private schools do - the process of the applying is a lot smoother,” she said.
The NSW government has commissioned an independent review into the disability provision program which is expected to be handed down before the end of the year.
A NESA spokeswoman said the agency has “absolute confidence in the rigour of the current disability provisions program”.
“Increases in disability provisions are generally in line with broader disability prevalence trends across Australia,” she said.
Originally published as The elite Sydney schools where more than 1 in 4 students have special HSC exam provisions
Public or private? What the 2025 NAPLAN results tell parents
