HIGHER School Certificate students often feel like they are living in a bubble in the weeks before the examinations designed to mark the end of their secondary schooling.
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This year, of course, the entire world is in a bubble - or a series of often remotely connected bubbles - and the education sector is just one of many to be thrown into turmoil.
Life, though, goes on, and despite the extreme challenges that COVID-19 has created for the education system, some 68,670 students are set to complete their HSCs this year.
For many, their results in December will be key to their immediate futures.
Statewide, more than 76,300 students are studying at least one HSC course this year.
The NSW Education Standards Authority says 3736 are in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, with another 1965 studying elsewhere in the Hunter Region, and 2947 on the Central Coast.
English is the only compulsory subject in the HSC.
The standards authority lists the top 15 courses by enrolment, with maths, having 58,316 students, in second place.
Biology follows, then business studies, personal development, studies of religion, modern history, legal studies and chemistry, with community and family studies in 10th spot, attracting 9172 students.
The visual arts are in 11th spot, then physics, ancient history and hospitality, with industrial technology in 15th position, having 6175 enrolments.
Coronavirus protocols are adding their increasingly familiar complications to this year's exams, which have been pushed back to allow a modicum of extra teaching time in a radically disrupted year.
With sporadic COVID outbreaks affecting a small number of schools in recent weeks, all involved will be hoping for an incident-free run until November 11, when the final written exam takes place.
Even without the heightened mental health concerns accompanying the coronavirus pandemic, many HSC students feel themselves under heavy pressure to succeed.
Yes, the results are often important, and for good reason.
But there will be other opportunities for those whose marks are not enough to put them where they had immediately hoped to be.
As always, we wish every HSC candidate the best in a year marked by the most extraordinary and unexpected of circumstances.
ISSUE: 39,443.
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