NSW: HSC students come first in new subjects

AAP General News (Australia)
12-19-2001
NSW: HSC students come first in new subjects

By Roz King

SYDNEY, Dec 19 AAP - Rebecca Armstrong rode a tractor for a NSW Higher School Certificate
(HSC) subject this year.

Officially she is now better at farming than any other class of 2001 student in NSW.

Rebecca, from Yass High School in the state's south-west, was today one of 123 students
to be presented with a certificate for coming first in a subject at this year's new HSC.

Rebecca topped primary industries - a new vocational subject introduced this year.

"It was a rural-based course where instead of doing mainly in-class work, we were out
on the farm doing proper work," she said.

Another vocational course, office administration, was topped by Asquith Girls High
School student Erica Drew.

"You do work placement and it helps you to move into employment, instead of being just
a school-based subject," she said.

In the process she also gained a certificate 2 in Business Services Office Administration,
she said.

Some students managed to come first in two subjects.

Catherine Gascoigne, from Santa Sabina College, Strathfield, topped advanced English
as well as a new English extension course.

The new English course content had positives and negatives, she said.

"I think it's a great course for the very bright students but I think unequivocally
it broadens the gap between those who do well and those who struggle," she said.

"But I think it's also good because it brings some social theory into it."

Katherine Wilcock, from SCEGGS Darlinghurst, excelled in the unusual combination of
physics and an intermediate French course: French continuers.

"They're a strange combination. But I just followed the subjects that I loved," she said.

"It was a lot more helpful because I could take my mind off physics by studying French
and vice versa. I wasn't studying the same way every time."

A number of students came first in two language subjects - both advanced and extension
- while Alexander Khlentzos from Armidale High School came first in both biology and mathematics.

AAP rk/arb/ph/br

KEYWORD: HSC STUDENTS

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