What a disappointment that our Year 12’s are not able to be on site to sit their Trial HSC examinations. This is an important test run for them under examination conditions and also contributes in most subjects to their internal results. 

The teachers, led by Mr McLellan have made significant adjustments to allow the examinations to become home-based assessment tasks closely aligned to the type of papers they would have faced in the actual trails. These papers will produce results which let both students and teachers know how the students are progressing, and also highlights areas for closer revision before the HSC examinations themselves take place.

At this stage the HSC examinations are scheduled to take place beginning from 19 October, but many questions remain around what conditions will be like by then. We have already received guidelines on the running of the examinations, and we can manage those without any problems. We would usually have celebrated graduation with our Year 12 students at the end of this term and that is also looking unlikely to be in its usual form.

The media has been full of comments about the impact of this lockdown on Year 12 students and their final school results. Personally, it concerns me that talking up stress and negative impact does not inspire confidence in students that they can rise to this challenge and still achieve good results. We at GPCC believe that we are doing everything we can to ensure our students have the best possible opportunity to acquit themselves well in the final examinations, which of course do not count for 100% of the HSC result. The students have already completed a majority of assessment tasks that contribute to the overall results.

If you have a child in Year 12, or relatives who are in this situation, remember to be encouraging and positive. If the students have been diligent in using this time well, have contacted their teachers when they needed help, and have sought to balance their study time with exercise, relaxation and some form of socialisation, they can be confident of doing well.

We stand with them and wish them all the best as they prepare to commence their final assessments from next Wednesday 18 August in place of the Trials. I am confident they can do well and make us all proud. Whatever lies ahead we are ready to help them to do well. Our prayers are certainly with our students and their families through this experience.

For the rest of the student body, we continue to work at providing on-going material and activities in line with the curriculum, and thank all families for your patience  and support as we manage this once in a lifetime event.

Phillip Nash

Principal