High schools to face random inspections next year to make sure teachers are teaching right HSC course

HIGH schools will be hit by random inspections next year to make sure teachers are sticking to the syllabus and properly preparing students for the HSC.

High schools will be hit by random inspections to make sure they are sticking to the syllabus. It comes as Paul Withers was sacked for teaching the wrong maths to his students. Picture: Supplied

HIGH schools will be hit by random inspections next year to make sure teachers are sticking to the syllabus and properly preparing students for the HSC.

The move comes after teacher Paul Withers was sacked from Coonamble High School in August for teaching the wrong HSC maths course for seven months and The Sunday Telegraph’s exclusive story last week that revealed students at St Catherine’s in Waverley claimed they weren’t prepared for their engineering course.

The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), formerly the Board of Studies, will next year conduct 26 surprise audits to examine “compliance with HSC course delivery” at schools.

Under the new scheme, 18 public schools, four private schools and four Catholic schools will be given four days’ notice to have their class records ready for scrutiny.

Only just last week, The Sunday Telegraph revealed several students from St Catherine’s in Waverley claimed they were prepared properly for their HSC engineering course. Picture: Danny Aarons

However, it won’t help this year’s 70,000 Year 12 students, who will receive their HSC marks this Wednesday.

Coonamble students in particular will be sweating on the results, to find out if 35 hours of intensive tutoring before and after school saved them from their teacher’s mistake.

Mr Withers is co-operating with an investigation by the education department’s Employee Performance and Conduct Directorate (EPAC) into why school administrators took so long to discover the gaffe.

RELATED: GIRLS CLAIM TEACHER FAILED TO PREPARE THEM FOR HSC

“The program allows NESA to assess school compliance outside of other more routine monitoring processes and provides evidence of how schools are complying when an inspection is not expected,” a spokesman said.

“NESA assesses what matters should be a specific item in the random inspections and looking at 2017 decided to include HSC course delivery in 2018.”

Inspectors will also run the rule over school safety, security, child protection and support services.

President of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council Chris Presland said well-run schools shouldn’t have anything to be worried about. Picture: Dylan Robinson

Well-run schools should have nothing to fear, according to President of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council Chris Presland.

“NESA picks high risk issues and has decided child protection and the HSC are the big ones,” Mr Presland said.

“Checks and balances are watertight in public schools. What happened in Coonamble was an anomaly involving a very unusual set of circumstances.”

Government-run schools perform internal audits that require teachers, faculty heads and principals to sign off on lengthy checklists declaring they’ve taught subjects correctly.

Mr Presland suspected schools with 30 or fewer students, known colloquially as garage schools, would likely have the most to lose.

Education bureaucrats will also be kept busy next year implementing a major revamp of the HSC that will see the number of assessment tasks slashed in response to systemic plagiarism and ghostwriting.