The reality of my mainstream schooling! How you can complete your mainstream HSC… (Part 2- my High School Journey)
As you may of read in Part One of this blog I was in the mainstream schooling system for my primary school years and was thriving, despite some hurdles. As many of you may relate to, high school brought its separate challenges which were resolved by the time I reached my HSC. Let’s continue on with the beginning of high school.
Throughout my last few years of primary school, the fact that I was needing to prepare for high school was constantly on my mind. Personally, I was extremely excited about the change, as I typically like new experiences. In preparation for this change into high school it was decided that I would spend a number of afternoons a week getting to know kids from different primary schools around both my local area and local to the high school I was enrolled in. As well as this, it was also recommended that I do an IQ Test. To my surprise, my IQ results came out with a significantly above average score, leaving me with a great feeling about my class in high school.
Despite this, these results were unfortunately ignored. Although I still am confused how it happened, I was put into the bottom class. Although I met some amazing friends in the class this was the completely wrong decision as it put a severe dent in my academic and social beginnings in my new school environment. It also took longer for my year group to realise how intelligent I was and how to communicate with me. Fortunately, after a few months and many discussions it was decided that I was going to be put in one of the top classes in my grade. Although I don’t hold grudges about this situation much anymore, the reason I have put this in my blog is because I have heard similar stories of this happening to other students just earlier this year. If you are unfortunately one of these students, you really need to know that you definitely have the right to be in the class where you fit into and to strive to do the HSC if that’s what you want.
From here I got the chance to really thrive at high school. I was extremely fortunate enough to have most of the best teachers, the most beautiful year adviser, an incredible librarian (who allowed me to utilise a room in the library every day) and the chance to make some extremely beautiful friends who I still see on a regular basis. The only real issues came at exam time. This was because my only way of typing in those days was by using a scanning system on an onscreen keyboard which I pressed with a switch by my knee when the scanning hit the right letter. As you would imagine this was a slow process and we worked outthat it took me an equivalent of about eight hours for each hour that my peers had for each exam. Getting the right adjustments for this timing wasn’t easy as it involved literally years of trials and errors.
As this trialing was obviously having a huge toll on my physical and mental health, there were talks about if it was really worth me going through and putting my body through the HSC, if the results didn’t really reflect my intelligence due to the time restraints. As well as this it was also clear that if I was going to continue on with my HSC I had to do “Pathways”, which meant that I was to split my HSC subjects and complete them over two years.To be honest, for about a month after these discussions I found myself in a position where I was completely in two minds. I had always wanted to complete my HSC and go to university but I literally couldn’t imagine myself continuing on with my schooling the way I had been as the Life Skills Program sounded so much better for my wellbeing.
Thankfully, this confusion suddenly ended after meeting up with one of my best friends, Georgia, at a Recreation Night (for teenagers) at Northcott Disability Services. After having a conversation with Georgia, I discovered that she was doing Pathways and the HSC as well, so she was going to be in the same position as me. After spending this time with Georgia, my decision was made up. I was to continue with my mainstream education knowing that one of my best friends was going through exactly the same situations that I was. As the year went on, I slowly came to the realisation that a whole network of students chose to do their HSC over multiple years, so we weren’t alone.
The other benefit of continuing on with my HSC became crystal clear once I entered my new year group. This is because I became friends with literally every single person in that year group as they were all so accommodating and lovely. I remember each person went out of their way to include me in every Year 12 activity, discuss something in class, have laughs or just have a chat with me., although I usually communicated using a letter board in those days. These lovely connections within my last year group really made my final year of my schooling absolutely amazing and eased the extra stresses of completing my HSC and two major works beautifully.
It’s been nearly ten years now since I finished my last exam of my HSC. Looking back at my 15 years of schooling I definitely feel that I was extremely lucky to have all of my schooling set in a mainstream environment. Those years really did mold my life in many different ways and set me up on the right path to pursue further education at university and then obtain employment (see blogs How I found a way to living my own educational dream.. and Our realities behind the ‘Remove The Barrier’ campaign and practical tips for how you can get involved with the changing world of employment for people who have disabilities!). I am also so thankful to my family, education staff and my friends who were always with me every step of the way.
