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HSC results 2016: The schools punching above their weight

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In a country town at the edge of the Warrumbungles in NSW's northwest, a tiny high school is punching well above its weight in the HSC.

Judged against similar schools by socioeconomic background, Coonabarabran High's HSC results put it in the state's top five performers, along with Canley Vale, Inverell, Bonnyrigg and Fairvale.

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HSC results 2016: Top schools revealed

Here's which schools scored big in the 2016 Higher School Certificate.

These schools, which are among the most disadvantaged 25 per cent in the state, outperformed schools in the most advantaged 25 per cent.

Coonabarabran's 2016 dux Gina Elton is the sixth of eight children. Living on a farm outside town, she had an 1½-hour bus ride each way to school.

On Friday she discovered she had achieved an ATAR of 95.5 that should put her well on track for her ambition to become a doctor.

"It was a challenge, but I'm grateful for living out here," she said.

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"The teachers at Coonabarabran really value the HSC, they put in all this extra work, like revision sessions out of school time that they're not getting paid for, they just did it for us. The teachers really wanted us to do our best."

Hundreds of kilometres away, and worlds apart, is Bonnyrigg in south western Sydney. There, another high achiever from a school performing against the odds was getting her HSC results.

"I don't even have any words, I'm so happy," Adriana Esho says.

Adriana went to Fairvale, a large, multicultural high school on the boundary of Fairfield and Canley Vale, one of Sydney's most economically disadvantaged areas.

Having achieved an ATAR of 98.6, Adriana will have her pick of university offers to study engineering.

One of the strongest predictors of a school's marks in the HSC is the level of socioeconomic advantage of its students. This includes measures such as parents' occupations and level of education, the school's location and its share of Indigenous students.

Schools in richer, inner-urban areas typically perform better, while schools in poorer and more remote areas have a lot more obstacles to HSC success. Australia's school system overall is not doing enough to tackle the equity gap.

But based on a Fairfax Media analysis of the HSC data and the national measure of schools' socioeconomic background (known as the ICSEA score) there are dozens of schools bucking that trend, and there are teachers, principals and students working hard to prove that, despite disadvantages, postcode is not destiny.

The Education Department describes these schools as "high value-added" schools, and there are boffins in the department studying them in the hope of replicating their success.

While southwestern Sydney is often in the news for negative reasons, six of the top 20 schools from the most disadvantaged quarter in this year's HSC are in this region (Canley Vale, Bonnyrigg, Fairvale, St Johns Park, Birrong Girls and Liverpool Girls). Overall, their results put them in the top third of schools in the state. 



"Our school does have really high expectations of our kids," Fairvale principal Kathleen Seto said. "Our community is very multicultural, and very poor but very aspirational.

"We have very dedicated teachers, trained specialists in their teaching area. We focus on goal setting for individuals. We do lots of work on study skills, we offer after-school tutoring for free, three days a week, where our own teachers teach our students. We have a senior learning centre where they have to go in their free periods to do their work. We have a transition adviser whose full-time job it is to support kids to re-engage at school and make sure they're in the right courses for them. We have VET courses in the school – construction, retail, business services.

"The staff do a lot, they work really hard to foster the students' capabilities."

Mrs Seto, who has been Fairvale's principal for almost a decade, said the NSW government's Gonski-style needs-based funding model (RAM) had enabled a significant level of increased support for students.

Fairvale student Adriana Esho said the "school gave us endless support, regardless of whether we're in a low socioeconomic area".

Adriana said she had been motivated to study hard for her mother, who was trained as an agricultural engineer in Iraq but had been unable to find work in her field in Australia.

"She was struggling most of the time," Adriana said of her mother. "She managed to give us a lifestyle that was quite difficult to achieve, just so we would have a successful future. I'm so proud of her. I tried to do it for her, and for myself too."

She said her friends too had been happily surprised by their results.

"A lot of people in our area underestimate what they can actually do... I always say …it's all in the mindset, and if you really want it you can actually get it. And I think after today they can see that's the truth."