Students are awarded the Higher School Certificate or HSC after completing a program of study which meets the requirements of the NSW Education Standards Authority and Department of Education policy.

To meet these requirements, schools are responsible for developing programs of study, and assessment and reporting processes that can be understood by students and their families.

All schools deliver programs of study, including Life Skills and VET courses, that comply with the requirements of NESA syllabuses for the HSC. These syllabuses include outcomes, content, skills, specific requirements for delivery and indicative hours of study.

Early term 4 of each year, schools access HSC monitoring advice on the Department’s Student Assessment Stage 6 webpage. This document provides advice on what schools must and should do, contains a check list calendar of requirements and provides links to additional resources.

School-based processes procedures must align with the department’s Curriculum planning and programming, assessing and reporting to parents K-12 policy and the associated documents. They must also comply with HSC credentialing processes: NESA’s official notices, the Assessment Certification Examination website, the Stronger HSC standards, and HSC disability provisions.

Principals of secondary, central and SSP schools with an HSC cohort of students, and Director’s Educational Leadership are required to discuss the school’s procedures and documentation. This is to ensure compliance with the HSC curriculum implementation and credentialing processes of NESA and the department. These discussions are confirmed by the end of Term 1 each year in SPaRO – the School Planning and Reporting Online tool.

In SPaRO, the principal confirms and the DEL endorses the Appendix 2 HSC monitoring declaration or submits a Nil return if the school does not have a current Year 12 HSC cohort. No further action is required if a Nil return for Appendix 2 is submitted.

To inform targeted support, SPaRO is also used by the principal to complete HSC inexperienced or unsupervised teacher support data or submit a Nil return on this page.

Meeting HSC curriculum requirement guidelines is essential to ensure students will be awarded their HSC.

End of transcript.