More than 30,000 students do this HSC subject. Fewer than 200 get top marks

2 weeks ago 13

The proportion of HSC students choosing advanced English has fallen since 2019, leading to about 2000 more students taking standard English last year.

A combination of peer pressure and misconceptions around scaling may have driven more students to take standard English instead of the Advanced option last year.

About one in three English students (33.8 per cent) studied the advanced course in last year’s HSC, falling from 35.4 per cent in 2019. In comparison, the proportion of students studying standard English has increased – up from 42.8 per cent in 2019 to 44.2 per cent in 2024.

It is not just more students who are choosing to study standard English over the advanced course – there has also been a large performance gap observed between the two.

Fewer than 200 of the almost 33,000 standard students in 2024 achieved a Band 6 – a mark of 90 or above – in last year’s HSC, compared with more than 3800 of the 25,000 advanced students.

This means fewer than 1 in 100 standard English students received a Band 6 result, compared with 15 in every 100 advanced English students. It is a similar story when Band 5 results are included in the mix – more than half of last year’s English advanced cohort achieved marks of 80 or above, compared with just 12 per cent of standard students.

Kane Piper, head of English at Grafton High School, said the significant gap in outcomes did not surprise him.

“Ever since I can remember, that [gap] has been there, and it is a little bit of an anomaly across subjects because I don’t think there’s any other subject that has a similar [gap].”

University of Canberra education professor Dr Philip Roberts agrees, saying it could partly be accounted for by the different cohorts of students who study them.

“Usually, more advantaged students do advanced, less advantaged students do standard, and results are typically closely aligned to the socioeconomic backgrounds of students.

“Another misnomer is that kids will often choose or drop to standard in year 12, thinking it’s easier and that they’ll get better results. But they often lower their effort and don’t quite actually achieve the outcome as a result,” he said.

Laura and Clara Ebba, 18, both studied HSC standard English in 2024 and received marks in the 80s.

Weighing up these competing options means some students feel they are caught between two courses.

Twins Clara and Laura Ebba completed their HSC at Sydney Secondary College last year and felt affected by peer pressure at times because most of their cohort chose advanced English. Ultimately, they went with their teacher’s recommendation of standard English and did not regret it, both receiving Band 5 marks.

“In the end, because we got more confident with English, a lot of our friends told us we should have chosen advanced,” Laura said.

“There would be the rant here and there like ‘standard is so easy, you guys have it really easy’. I can see why they think it’s easier because I’ve seen their assessments and I think ‘oh God’, but no matter what you choose, there’s always going to be challenges.”

Many students also choose English advanced over the standard course due to the perception that it scales better.

“It’s also peer pressure, where people say advanced does better in terms of scaling. And I feel like that shouldn’t really matter – because at the end of the day, it’s how well you do in the subject,” Laura said.

Even when the scaling process is considered, teachers and parents have an incentive to encourage students to study easier subjects, where there is a higher chance of achieving a Band 6 result, a recent Catholic Schools NSW report found.

Piper said the best starting point for students on the fence was having a conversation with their English teacher.

“Tell them what you like reading, whether you read on the weekend or like writing – all those types of conversations. And if they’re still unsure, I just always tell the kids to have a go. There’s no disadvantage to them challenging themselves,” he said.