NEWS broke last Wednesday 23 August of a major mistake in the teaching of the General Maths course at Coonamble High School for this year’s Higher School Certificate course.
From the moment the story aired on Ray Hadley’s morning broadcast from Sydney’s 2GB, Coonamble became the centre of media attention.
Radio and newspaper reporters, TV crews, and freelance photographers arrived in the town around lunchtime while others were on the phones and social media trying to find someone to talk to.
Contrary to what some media outlets have claimed, the school had acted quickly and the students were already underway with their new timetable and a range of assistance measures in place before the media circus began.
A Year 11 student raised concerns about the maths stream they were studying at a Subject Selection evening the previous Wednesday night.
The school’s Executive investigated the following day and Executive Principal Dorothea Panaretos confirmed the situation via individual conversations with the seven affected students and their parents on the morning of Friday 18 August saying “This is very serious and you can be assured we are taking it very seriously.”
It had been revealed that the teacher of the General Maths course had taught only one of the two streams required for the students to achieve an Australian Tertiary Admission Ranking (ATAR).
While the majority of topics in the course are common to both Maths 1 and Maths 2, an additional three or four units of work in Stream 2 had not been covered.
From Friday to Monday the school worked to get a range of assistance in place for the affected students, including additional in-class tutoring, before and after school sessions and other supports.
All parents and carers were understandably upset and angry that the situation had not been picked up and resolved earlier.
The additional pressure on the students to learn new content at a time when they would normally be reviewing their three subjects is a real concern.
At a meeting on Tuesday morning 22 August, students and parents were asked if they wanted to take up the options offered and asked for other suggestions.
The school consulted with experienced maths teachers, the NSW Education Standards Authority and various departmental authorities to determine whether it was possible to make up the lost ground before the HSC exams in October.
Maths teacher, Miss Jenny Langdon who teaches the other HSC 2 Unit Mathematics class, agreed to take the class for the estimated thirty hours needed to catch up.
For the Year 11 students, the opportunity to undertake the exam again in 2018 remains an option as Coonamble High School operates under what is known as a “compacted curriculum” model.
Students study three HSC subjects in Year 11 and sit the exams for those subjects at the usual time.
In Year 12, they study and complete the exams for a further three subjects to gain their Higher School Certificate and ATAR if desired.
For the two Year 12 students, the situation is more urgent and the options fewer.
However, the potential for early entry to university via Principal’s recommendation and other pathways seem likely scenarios.
Parents are calling for a consideration of ‘misadventure’ for the examinations due to the situation being completely outside the students’ control.
At the meeting one parent commented, “Welcome to real life kids,” he said. “Life isn’t always fair and you’ve just got to deal with it and make the best of it.”
A NSW Education Department representative has also pointed out that “this type of thing probably happens to some extent every two or three years somewhere in NSW, in both public and private schools.”
Not studying a particular English text or missing units of work are not uncommon in schools large and small.
How the error was overlooked until the students were two weeks out from their Trial HSC Exams is now the subject of intense scrutiny.
The teacher responsible has left Coonamble, however, questions are being asked about how his supervisors failed to be aware of what was happening.
Coonamble High School is now receiving visits from various departmental officers including Anna Wethereld, NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) Inspector Mathematics and Numeracy who spoke with staff and students on Friday 25 August.
Her main priority was to discuss how best to support the HSC students and Ms Langdon as they prepare for the HSC exam on 23 October.
Based on those conversations, Ms Wethereld confirmed that the students had “established a solid foundation in maths.”
She said she was confident the school had developed an “effective study pathway for these students so they can complete their studies in the coming months.”
Ms Wethereld said she expects to return to the school in coming weeks to further observe the progress of the students and the teacher.
“NESA will offer further support to the students and teacher as needed,” she said.
In the meantime, investigations are continuing into the monitoring, support and supervision processes in place at Coonamble High School that allowed the issue to occur.
On Tuesday 29 August, Mr Bob Aston from the Department of Education visited the school and spoke to staff, parents and students to look at what went wrong.
With the Trial Exams commencing soon, the students are now under pressure to learn all they need for their mathematics course.
Parents remain very concerned and will be keeping a close eye on whether they feel their teenager is able to cope with the additional workload of after-school sessions.
“It doesn’t matter what the school puts in place now,” says one parent. “It is still putting it back on the students to catch up.”
P&C President Lee O’Connor says “If anything good is to come of this, it will be that our school should have the best supervision and support systems in the state once it’s all over.”
“It is also an opportunity to look at whether the staffing processes used by the Department of Education actually meet the needs of small, regional schools,” she said.
“Our children deserve quality teaching, and the teachers deserve quality supervision and support from Head Teachers and other senior staff,” said Mrs O’Connor.
“This is an opportunity for us to make sure that those things are cemented in to our school.”