HSC students face strict new coronavirus rules during exams
Students will be kicked out of HSC exams if they show even mild symptoms like a persistent cough, under strict new guidelines put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Other measures include cleaners on standby and check-in practices for students.
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Fleets of buses, eagle-eyed nursing staff, QR codes and armies of cleaners on standby are just some of the extraordinary measures being prepared for the HSC exams from Tuesday.
The state government issued a series of strict protocols to ensure the exams will not be blighted by a COVID-19 outbreak, including ordering that students be kicked out of exams if they show even mild symptoms like a persistent cough.
However, many schools are going above and beyond those measures.
Almost all of them will order Year 11 students to work from home over the next three weeks, to provide enough empty classrooms for socially-distant exams.
All students will be screened before entering exams and will need to carry a note from their doctor if they have pre-existing medical conditions with similar symptoms to COVID-19 such as hayfever or asthma.
At St Marys Senior High School in Sydney’s west, where more HSC students will sit an exam that any other public school in the state, HSC students will spill across 30 rooms during English and maths exams.
All 30 rooms will be deep-cleaned by professionals before and after exams. Before entering, St Marys students will need a ticket they can only collect if they sign an attendance sheet declaring they do not have flu-like symptoms and are not required to self-isolate.
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If a student from St Marys tests positive for COVID-19, the entire cohort will sit their exams in Western Sydney University lecture theatres while the school is deep-cleaned.
St Marys Senior High School teachers have grab bags filled with pens, calculators and geometry sets in case they have to leave in a hurry.
“I don’t think we could have done any more to make these exams safe,” St Mary’s Senior High School principal Sally Smithard said.
“I am confident we will pick up anyone showing symptoms before they enter the exams by screening every student.”
HSC students at Canley Vale High School will need to scan QR codes at the school gate, which will prompt them to declare whether they are COVID-free.
Both Canley Vale and Westfield Sports High School will cordon off whole sections of their schools, in case either school needs an alternative exam site at short notice because someone was infectious.
Westfield Sports High School will even have buses ready to ferry HSC students to other schools if necessary.
Canley Vale will have its school nurse on call to help relieving principal Deborah Santucci decide whether students need to be asked to leave.
“We will use the expertise of clinic nurse to make the assessment of whether student has mild flu-like symptoms,” Ms Santucci said.
“If the student has to leave, their parents will be called and they will need to go straight to the doctor for a COVID-test and that will help with their misadventure claim.”
Masks will not be mandatory.