Gunnedah’s 2016 Higher School Certificate students are racking up their phone bills calling and texting one another to exchange results and ATAR’s.
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HSC results were released on Thursday from about 5am, and ATAR’s were released on Friday at 9am.
Forty-eight students sat the HSC at St Mary’s College, scooping up 14 band 6’s and 85 band 5’s.
Stand-out Sophie Perkins achieved four band 6’s, two band 5’s and an ATAR of 94.4, making her the school dux for 2016.
The dux said she was “really nervous” about checking her results and was “shocked” to receive such high marks.
“I wasn’t expecting that many band 6’s. I was really excited [and] relieved because I’ve worked so hard this year,” she said.
“It’s been a long two years but it’s been worth it.”
Sophie said her mum sent flowers to her workplace, Walker Beer Solicitors and Conveyancers, and was “stoked” by her achievement.
St Mary’s principal Max Quirk said Sophie was highly conscientious when it came to study.
“She was just totally focused and dedicated for the whole time, however she managed to maintain a balance in her lifestyle,” he said.
“She knew what had to be done and she did it. I’ve never seen a student do it better.”
Sophie is taking a gap year, undertaking a certificate three in business administration (legal) at Walker Beer and waitressing at Bitter Suite. She will defer a Bachelor of Social Work at the University of Newcastle.
Mr Quirk said he was happy overall with how the students performed, particularly in Studies of Religion in which half of the students received a band 5 or 6.
“We’ve had a real effort in the past two years of trying to extend out better students into the band 5’s,” he said.
“The teachers are pretty excited to get such great results and we feel our school improvement plan is on track, and we’ve identified areas we feel we can still improve further.”
The school’s 2016 captains, Sam Koenig and Keely Murphy are pleased with their results and said they received the marks and ATAR’s they expected.
Keely was particularly eager for her results, stirring her friend, and former Gunnedah High School vice captain, Michaela Langdon out of sleep with an early phone call on Thursday morning.
“I was up at 5 o’clock because I couldn’t sleep,” Keely said.
“I was drifting in and out of sleep all night. I had a dream that I was supposed to get my HSC results… and I opened my results and they were HSC booklets and I thought ‘What does that mean?’”
Michaela said looked at her results while she was on the phone to Keely and shared them.
“The first thing I did was open it and screamed at the fact that I passed Maths,” she said.
Michaela said she thought she would receive higher marks in her results but she still got the number she needed when she checked her ATAR.
“I got my foot in the door and that’s all I needed,” she said.
Sam took his time checking his results on Thursday but was up early to check his ATAR on Friday.
“My marks averaged a lot higher than my ATAR,” he said.
Sam did well in PDHPE, business studies and studies of religion.
“I knew I was only going to get what I put in. I was pretty happy with [my marks].”
Keely said on the morning of the ATAR release, she awoke early and decided to play piano to distract herself from the wait.
“I squealed when I found out that I got a band 6 in music and three band 5’s and one was in English,” she said.
“I was pretty over the moon about that.”
Michaela, Sam and Keely have received the ATAR’s required for the courses they want to undertake at the University of Newcastle and said they were looking forward to a stress-free Christmas.
