St Mary’s HSC students will start their exams at a hockey stadium rather than at school. Photo: Keeli Dyson.
St Mary’s students will be forced to sit their first HSC exams at a Unanderra sports stadium, after road closures have made their school inaccessible during the pivotal time.
Preparing for HSC exams can already be stressful, with the results from these tests helping to determine future study or career paths.
But for Year 12 student Georgia O’Grady-Shorten and more than a hundred of her peers at St Mary Star of the Sea College, there is now the added pressure of sitting some of the exams in a new location, the Illawarra Hockey Centre at Unanderra.
“There’s hardly anyone that’s been in there, so they’re going to be confused, a bit lost and a bit distracted,” Georgia said.
“I feel like everyone has stress – that’s a normal factor, but others get to go to their school, they know where to go and it’s the same thing they did as the trials.”
“I think it came as a surprise,” Georgia’s mum Melissa said. “As a parent, when I got the email to say that the exams were not going to be at school, for me it was a bit of an instant panic.”
The World Triathlon Championship Finals shut down the streets surrounding the school, with other years also studying remotely this week.
But St Mary’s strived to give the HSC students as much time as possible to plan ahead.
“They were really good with it; I think they told us the day the dates came out for the triathlon,” Georgia said.
“Fortunately we had noticed this early in the year so we’ve been able to take a reasonable time to make sure we got things right in terms of preparing the girls,” St Mary Star of the Sea College principal Tony Fitzgerald said.
“If this was a last-minute arrangement then I would be more concerned, but the girls have had a long time to get used to the idea that they would be doing their English exams in a different setting.”
Finding a suitable new location was a challenge.
“Places like the university, the Innovation Campus, the Town Hall and the WEC, all of those places that we might otherwise have considered were off the table because they too are impacted,” Mr Fitzgerald said.
“And the other issue is that we have a big cohort; there’s 175 girls in Year 12 – that’s a big group by comparison with most schools, so we had to find somewhere that was big enough,.”
As a hockey player, Georgia is familiar with the stadium but is still concerned about distractions she wouldn’t normally have at school.
“It’s definitely not soundproof,” Georgia said.
“If I’m in the same environment I’m always in I’m less stressed and only thinking about the exam, but I feel if the heat has an impact, I’ll find it hard to focus and it will have a pretty big toll.
“The school is airconditioned and the hockey centre is not, so if they get a hot day, I don’t know what they’re going to do,” Melissa said.
“It’s not like they can open up doors or have those really noisy fans going.
“Georgia gets pretty distracted as well so she would find that hard.”
“Clearly they won’t have the security and comfort of doing the exams where they’re accustomed to doing their exams,” Mr Fitzgerald said. “But once they get into the exam room it will be like any other exam room including the one at St Mary’s.”
Some students will also have to travel significantly longer, with navigating bus or train timetables an added burden on the students who would usually access the school via public transport.
“We’ve encouraged them to leave plenty of time, make sure that they know how to get there and allow for likely disruption around the region due to changed traffic arrangements,” Mr Fitzgerald said.
Then, after just two exams, students will relocate once again.
“We only do English at Unanderra, so that’s the first week and then the next week we’re back at school,” Georgia said.
“Then you’ve got to switch back; it’s going to be a change.”
While the location changes are an additional weight, Georgia said her family’s approach to supporting her and not adding expectations, as well as receiving early admission as a backup, have really helped.
“I’m not relying only on my ATAR which is good,” Georgia said. “I think that takes a lot of stress off.”
“She’s seen that it’s OK even if you don’t get your first choice,” Melissa said.
“We’ve always said to her, just do something and then if you don’t enjoy it, even if you get your dream degree, it’s OK to change halfway through and do something different.”
