St Francis Xavier Catholic college at Hamilton has cancelled year 12 students' trial HSC exams.
The school announced on Thursday afternoon that next week's already-delayed HSC trials would not go ahead after the state government extended Newcastle's lockdown for another week.
"As you are aware, trial examinations were postponed last week as a result of the current NSW health orders and the ensuing lockdown," principal Greg Ptolemy said in a latter to parents on Thursday.
"Unfortunately, the extension of the lockdown now means that we have been forced to cancel our trial examinations as students continue to work from home."
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Mr Ptolemy said the school had considered online trial exams but the "complications of variable internet access, examination security periods, difficulty in providing appropriate disability provisions and reliability of monitoring student work" could not be overcome.
The school was "making alterations to the assessment plans for every course, which will see a readjustment of task weightings".
"Further to this, depending on the percentage completion of each course, decisions will be made to either attempt a final modified task (which will be the case for most courses), or abandon the final assessment task entirely."
Some Catholic schools completed their trial exams before Newcastle's lockdown began last week, but others have not.
Mr Ptolemy said SFX would focus on making the assessment "equitable and fair for all students".
"While this scenario is less than ideal, I would take this opportunity to remind all our students that the internal assessment is ultimately moderated by NESA [NSW Education Standards Authority] against external HSC examination performances.
Year 12 students would have the chance to simulate the HSC exams "in their home environments".
The HSC exams will run from October 19 to November 12.
SFX has also cancelled year 11 final exams this term.
