糖心logo

High Notes, Vol 27 No 27, September 04 2026

From the Principal

High Talent

Congratulations to Jasper Bai, who has recently been nominated to represent NSW in the U15 age group at the Australian National Junior Table Tennis Championships.

AI Policy

This week, NESA announced changes that limit the number and proportion of take-home assessment tasks that may be used in Preliminary and HSC courses.

糖心logo has operated with similar limits for some time. This approach supports academic integrity by reducing concerns about the authenticity of student work and helps prepare students for the demands of HSC examinations.

The following courses offered at the school are exempt from these limits:

• Visual Arts
• Drama
• Music 1
• Music 2
• English Extension 2
• History Extension
• Music Extension

The following are excerpts from the school policy on AI that was introduced in July this year:

Students

Students may only use GenAI, when directed by teachers, with approved tools, such as NSWEduChat, and to support their own learning.

Students Must:

• Review inputs and outputs carefully.
• Avoid entering personal identifying information, sensitive/confidential data, or their own work into unapproved tools.
• Use conscientious and ethical judgement.
• Critically analyse the quality and integrity of the information provided.
• Rewrite all content in their own words unless directed otherwise.

Where possible, formative and summative tasks will adapt the DoE鈥檚 5 levels of AI use:

1. No AI
2. AI Assists with Editing
3. AI Assists with Ideas and Planning
4. AI Completes Part of the Final Task
5. Full AI Use to Generate Final Content

When GenAI content is submitted, students must disclose use of AI in their work by notifying their teachers. This includes formative tasks such as summarising study notes, research, definition of key terms or structuring a text. They should do this by citing the GenAI platform accessed and the date and time the output was retrieved. Students may additionally be asked to provide a brief summary of the prompts provided to the AI tool and any modifications made to its output.

Assessment task notifications should explicitly state whether department-approved GenAI tools can be used by students at school or home in completing the task. Assessment tasks cannot require that students use generative AI tools other than and other approved tools, as this would conflict with the department鈥檚 value of equity.

All work presented in assessment tasks and external examinations (including submitted works and practical examinations) must be a student鈥檚 own or must be acknowledged appropriately.

Enrolment 2027

We received 95 applications for Year 8 with eight students placed on a Reserve List. There were 267 applicants for Year 9. Thirty offers were made and eight placed on the Reserve List. 43 students applied for Year 10. Four were placed on the Reserve List. For Year 11, there were 43 applications. Six offers were made and two placed on the Reserve List. I was very pleased with the interest in enrolling in High across greater metropolitan Sydney. Thank you to Maria Glenn for her expert recording and processing of the data and for her liaison with parents of applicants. Thank you to our 20+ Assessors for their prompt attention to the task of assessing and ranking up to 30 applications overnight. Thank you also to our non-staff Selection Committee members - community representative, Jocelyn Yem, and Old Boy representative Paul Almond. We look forward to welcoming these new students to High next year to enhance our scholar sportsman ethos.
George Barris
Relieving Principal