Full list: Every NSW school that got HSC ‘mark adjustments’

High rates of illness and misadventure applications among HSC students has prompted calls for a crackdown on schools using loopholes to boost their numbers. Search every school in NSW here to see their ‘mark adjustments’.

More and more schools are seeking HSC mark adjustments.

A crackdown on kids chucking a sickie instead of sitting this year’s Higher School Certificate exams is needed according to the head of the state’s principals council who claims some schools are gaming the system.

The comments come as HSC exams begin on Wednesday and the revelation that official NSW Education Standards Authority data reveals that the number of students getting mark adjustment rose 20 per cent in one year alone from 5787 to 7046 students in 2021.

At the $40,218 a year Sydney Grammar, 10 per cent of all students sitting the HSC filed for illness provisions last year. It was a similar story at Loreto Kirribilli where 12 per cent of all girls asked for mark adjustments due to illness while at the $34,008 a year girls school Wenona, 11 per cent of all students were sick.

According to official data, 100 other schools did not have a single child receive special provisions for being sick during the four weeks of exams – the majority of which were public schools in regional NSW.

That list included Gunnedah High and Tamworth High in regional NSW as well as Cranebrook High in Sydney’s West and Tuggerah Lakes Secondary College on the Central Coast.

Secondary Principals’ Council president Craig Petersen said some schools had a win at all costs approach when it came to the HSC but called on the NSW Education Standards Authority to make sure every student was on a level playing field.

“Where we have seen unusual pockets of just unexpected numbers and incidences of illness and misadventure, then NESA, the regulatory body ought to be examining that and trying to make sure that as best they can that they’re valid,” he said.

“Some people are trying to game the system … What is really important is the integrity of the illness and misadventure so that those students who are deserving of them aren’t disadvantaged.

“There is 10 per cent of students in exclusive non-government schools who are ill … but in a lot of regional centres the wait for a GP is quite long — you’ve got to book six months in advance. What it does raise is a broader equity issue.”

As revealed by The Daily Telegraph earlier this year, dozens of high-fee private schools also claimed disability provisions in the HSC exams for more than a quarter of all their students while numerous public schools in Sydney’s west claimed them for just a few students or not at all in last year’s exams.

Adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Lisa Myer who works with HSC and senior students backed calls for an overhaul of the illness and misadventure system.

Year 12 students Natalie Sciara and Katie Panozzo will sit their HSC from Wednesday. Picture: Gaye Gerard

“The kids find loopholes in these systems and over the time I have been dealing with the HSC, I think this is becoming more of an issue and more students are not actually completing their exams,” she said.

“A lot of students have legitimately struggled, but the HSC is somewhat of a game in terms of how well a student can do.”