Almost 90 students will tackle paper one of English at St Mary's College and Gunnedah High School including Cameron Gale, Lucy Moore and Bella Gallagher.

They finished classes last week and Bella from St Mary's said it was "bitter-sweet".

"It was definitely a weird feeling ... You grow so close to everyone and develop such strong relationships with not only your year but the teachers as well," she said.

"It's definitely sad but you also have things to look forward to; all the dreams that have been manifesting for years are finally going to start happening."

Read also:

For Bella, starting the HSC with English is ideal - it's her favourite subject - and she will sit three English exams overall for advanced and extension English.

She is hitting the books straight-away and is keeping to a school-day timetable to help her focus.

The teen will mostly study solo but will also participate in school study sessions and focus on PDHPE and maths.

Cameron from the high school is taking this week off before diving back into school work.

"Honestly, it feels a little bit weird ... not being able to see everyone else as often but it's stages of life; you've just got to adapt," he said.

The Mullaley teen will stick to early mornings and complete past HSC exams to improve his time management skills.

Cameron is glad he doesn't have more than one exam on any given day and relieved there is a week between chemistry and biology because "I definitely need that time".

He is more confident about visual arts, biology and PDHPE because he did "pretty well" in the trial exams.

Fellow high schooler Lucy is already missing the school environment and said "it was teary" when she finished up a week ago.

A great lover of the agricultural plot, she even said goodbye to the cows and sheep.

"I'm going to miss what the school offers us," Lucy said.

The teen has her heart set on becoming an agronomist and will sit both agricultural and primary industry exams in the coming weeks.

Lucy struggles with chemistry but has taken her teacher's advice and persevered so she has some prior knowledge for university.

Maths is another subject that worries her.

"I did OK in my ag and primary industries [trial exams] because I know it and it comes naturally ... but maths, I struggle with," Lucy said.

"I can do all the stuff in class ... but when it comes to exam pressures, I can't remember all my formulas, I can't remember the steps.

"It takes me too long and I get stressed and then I read the questions wrong and it all goes down from there, so that's what I need to work on when I study for maths - doing exam conditions."

Lucy is also doing tutoring with a friend for biology and will balance out morning study with her waitressing job at The Verdict in the afternoons.