MUSWELLBROOK’S Rachel Henderson has made the All Round Achievers List and the Distinguished Achievers List in this year’s New South Wales Higher School Certificate.
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The 18-year-old attended Scone Grammar School and is the daughter of Sean and Elizabeth Henderson, who run Muswellbrook Physiotherapy.
Rachel is one of 35 students at Upper Hunter high schools to make the Distinguished Achievers List in the 2014 Higher School Certificate.
She studied seven subjects and got in the top bands – Band 6 or Band E4 – for all seven, which included Ancient History, English Advanced, Mathematics, Modern History, Extension English 1, Mathematics Extension 1 and History Extension.
“From mid-September I set a goal of studying eight hours every day on week days and six hours at weekends,” she said.
“And, to reinforce that, I would actually put a timer on my phone and time down eight hours every day and pause it when I had lunch.”
Rachel hopes to study Medicine at Newcastle University or Combined Law at UNSW, ANU or Macquarie University.
St Joseph’s High School Aberdeen student Alisha Brown also produced another outstanding individual performance, achieving at the highest level in six subjects.
Alisha scored 98 out of a possible 100 marks for Music and 48 out of 50 for English Extension 2.
“I was very surprised with the 98 for Music and was overwhelmed with the English Extension 2 mark because I was the only one in my school doing that subject,” Alisha said.
Alisha, who wrote a short book on the 1965 Wanda Beach murders for English Extension 2, hopes to study a Bachelor of Communications and Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Muswellbrook High School was impressed with the performances of its HSC students in 2014.
Seven students made the Distinguished Achievers List, among them Jordi Adam-Smith, Kyle Burgess, Jake Cronin, Connor Graham, Damon Jones, John Langley and Shiona Suzuki.
Principal Elizabeth Bate said she was pleased with the high level of attainment for students, their families, teachers and the community.
“Not only did [Muswellbrook High] achieve seven results of 90 or over, but [the school] had 30 results of 86 or over and 65 results of 80 or over which shows the Class of 2014 has been a very high calibre group,” Ms Bate said.
Other Upper Hunter students on the Distinguished Achievers List for the 2014 HSC include:
St Joseph’s High School, Aberdeen
Baihe Butcher, Brittannie Dalley, Nicole Dunn, Genevieve Hofman, Ben Lawrence, Gaia Macolino, Ellen Payne, Chantelle Power and Alexandra Wilkinson-Prangley.