HSC Tribute: Class of 2022
This year’s HSC tribute, held on Friday 17 February, saw students from Years 9, 12 and ’13’, gather in the Smith Auditorium to celebrate the academic achievements of the Class of 2022. The event featured a celebration of the outstanding academic achievements of last year, whilst also featuring several speeches giving advice to the current Year 12 cohort in their HSC year.
The event opened with a speech from the Headmaster, Dr John Collier, who commended the Class of 2022 on their diligence and hard work in their HSC and their outstanding academic achievements.
Dr Collier presented the Headmaster’s Enterprise award, which is awarded to the boy who makes the largest improvement in order of merit in his HSC year. Well done to Zac Chadwick for winning this award.
He used Zac’s extraordinary improvement as an example to the current Year 12s that hard work, perseverance, and grit are more important than just talent alone in your HSC year.
Following this address, the Deputy Head Academic, Mr Matt Leeds detailed the outstanding achievements of the Class of 2022. Special mention was given to the six state rankings achieved, as well as the ten students who achieved an ATAR of 99 or above.
Mr Leeds also emphasised the depth of the cohort, with a median ATAR of 90.35 (indicating that over half of the 113 students achieved an ATAR in the 90s, and 74 percent achieved an ATAR of 85 or above).
Importantly, the well-rounded achievements of Toby Brandon-Cooper, Jackson Stiel and Jordan Li, who all achieved exceptional ATAR results despite their significant investments in Swimming, Rugby, and Music respectively.
This carried an important message to the current Year 12s: an active engagement in Sports and School life can, and should, accompany the intense academic workload of Year 12.
At each tribute, a few high-achieving boys are asked to speak on their key takeaways from their HSC year, giving advice to the current Year 12s on how to tackle the long and challenging year that lies ahead.
The first speaker, Edward Ellis, highlighted the importance of completing past papers to prepare for exams. He encouraged current Year 12s to attempt past papers under timed conditions and ask their teachers for feedback on their work.
The boys were also lucky enough to hear from Nathan Zhou who achieved not only a perfect ATAR of 99.95, but also state top ten rankings in both Mathematics Extension 2 (2nd) and Chemistry (8th).
Interestingly, despite achieving a perfect score, what Nathan really emphasised in his speech was not the need for constant, life-consuming study, but rather striking the balance between work, enjoyment and exercise. Nathan referred to his own experiences in Tenths Basketball and as a frequent gym attendee, as key ways he decompressed during an otherwise stressful HSC year.
Additionally, he encouraged the boys to regulate their technology usage during study sessions, and suggested leaving their phone in a different room, or in his case, attempting to discard laptops entirely, instead favouring pen and paper, which has the added benefit of improving your writing speed.
Will Defina, who also achieved an ATAR in the 99s, spoke of his experiences in the ‘8 O’clock Gang’ (a group of boys who worked in the Library after School until closing time) as a fond memory of his HSC year, and likewise expressed the need for balance in a year that quickly becomes study-dominated. Will discussed that studying in the Library with friends, although marginally less productive, was a great deal more enjoyable than studying alone at home. When considering the HSC as the marathon that it is, as opposed to a sprint, Will explained how enjoying studying, as he did, becomes a necessary part of sustaining high effort throughout the year and avoiding burnout.
Finally, the boys heard from Chuyi Wang from the Class of 2017, who left Shore with a 99.95 ATAR and state rankings in English Advanced and Latin Extension. Chuyi discussed that when he left Shore, he had an intense passion for Literature, and knew he wanted to study this at university. However, after two years of university, Chuyi realised he was no longer in love with English and switched to a Law degree, discussing how a part of him felt he had wasted his first two years of university. What Chuyi stressed was that whilst the ATAR is important, you never really know where life will take you, and your passions may change and develop over time.
Top image credit: Chuyi Wang, Year 12 2017
With the end of Chuyi’s speech, the Class of 2022 left to a standing ovation to celebrate their extraordinary performance. I hope the current Years 9 to 12 students were able to take away as much as I did from the amazing speeches of these impressive boys.
C Ashton
Year 12 Student