By Emily Kowal
Computers have been around for as long as the HSC, but it’s taken until 2025 for the first software engineering exam to go entirely online.
This year, students were asked to write and run complex computer codes and use “pseudocode” to write an algorithm, all tasks that would have been impossible in a handwritten test.
King’s School year 12 software engineering students Daniel Yang, James Mao and Tyler Mitchell after completing the exam.Credit: Janie Barrett
Almost 1800 students sat Wednesday’s exam for the new subject, which replaced the outdated software design and development course with a new syllabus and new, fully online exam format.
The King’s School in Parramatta began preparing in 2022, and opened up the subject to external students who could enrol in an online version of the subject for $2000.
King’s year 12 student Tyler Mitchell, 17, embraced the change. “It was really good being the first year; it felt like we were discovering something new. The teachers were also teaching concepts for the first time as well. It was good discovering that,” he said.
Classmate Daniel Yang usually smashes out past papers in preparation for an exam, but did not have the option this time.
“That’s the main reason why it was so difficult for us. We didn’t have any past papers apart from the [curriculum board-supplied] familiarisation questions,” he said.
To prepare students for the great unknown, The King’s School head of computing studies Michael Ienna started work in 2022, when the subject’s draft syllabus was first announced.
“We built 10 mock exams to try to give them as much exposure as possible,” Ienna said.
The school also built online versions of the exam, to ready students for an online interface.
“The skill set [for an online exam] is so much different to what they are used to in every other exam they are doing this month. They had to figure out not only the content but new ways of applying those skills,” Ienna said as students needed to know how to code, create spreadsheets and draw on computers in practice, not just in theory.
“[At first] we had no sample, nothing to go on, no history to go on. Our concern was, ‘Are we covering it the way NESA [the NSW Education Standards Authority] wants it?’ ” he said.
It was a stressful task, but it worked.
HSC software subjects have faced challenges in recent years, said Ienna. Computing teachers are a rarity. “Few kids get the opportunity to study computing, especially in stage six, because most schools don’t do it,” he said.
In 2019, science extension students made history as the first to sit exams online. English extension exams are due to switch from pen and paper in 2027.
Students at King’s walked out of the exam with smiles on their faces. Student James Mao said assessors were “nice” to the maiden cohort.
“My favourite part of the exam was that NESA made it less challenging than I expected. I found it really easy, I finished with 40 minutes left,” he said.
Daniel agreed, praising the exam interface.
“The exam was actually easier than I thought … the NESA exam browser was actually way smoother than we anticipated,” he said.
“Our software teachers were a key resource. They laid out every part of the syllabus for us and went into extra depths to teach us each content.
“The fact we have a computing department is a luxury most [schools] don’t have,” Ienna said. “While we were building the course for ourselves, we were thinking, ‘How can we also build this to be able to offer it [to other schools]?’ ”
This year, 30 students enrolled in software engineering at King’s, including 17 online students at schools from the Blue Mountains to Nowra on the South Coast.
Next year’s cohort has 30 online students registered. “So, hopefully, we are seeing it grow,” Ienna said.
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