Six of the best
Jewish students were those amongst those students who scored top of the class in specific subjects in the HSC.
They were among the 120 students who headed their courses in 114 courses in the HSC.
They spoke with Elana Bowman.
Genevieve Goldman
She has always loved drama from a very young age – mainly from her love of musical theatre, so doing drama for the HSC was an obvious choice for her.
Sophie Puterflam
Moriah College student Sophie Puterflam received an equal first in Mathematics General 2 in this year’s HSC results. She was originally doing advanced maths, so she dropped to general and it became her favourite subject.
Maths made sense to her and it was for her fun to learn. She is taking a gap year and will go to university the following year, but is not sure what she will study.
Her advice to kids is to do subjects you enjoy, but also choose ones that you know you can succeed in because it’s a long process. She feels that in order to maintain motivation and interest you need to be consistent in your studying. She believes that people should also be aware of their strengths and weaknesses so that you can play to those.
Jack’s Story:
Sydney Grammar School’s student Jack Zimmerman received a first in Italian Continuers for this year’s HSC results.
Jack has always had a fervent passion for languages – he has studied French and Spanish, and wants to study more languages at university. He chose Italian because he loves the Italian culture – the food, the countryside, the culture, and history and the Italian people who are friendly and warm. He also wanted to study it because of the way it sounds – the way it rolls off the tongue.
Jack Zimmerman
Jack spent two months living in the suburbs of Florence with a Muslim Italian family. They didn’t speak a word of English, so the exchange really challenged him, culturally and linguistically. He attended an Italian school where the students were also learning English, Spanish, and French, and made lots of friends who helped him to get closer to fluency. This was a real turning point for him as it was the moment when he decided to fully commit to the language and try as hard he could to become fluent.
The main thing advice that he would give students during their HSC year (final year) is to not go too hard at the start. People want to go hard because they are nervous and excited, but they lose momentum really easily. Jack learnt that the hard way and really struggled in the middle of the year – so he feels that people need to consistently and constantly be working towards the end goal, but still have breaks in between.
He plans on studying International relations and politics at Sydney University next year. He also wants to continue studying languages and do a six-month exchange overseas. His main goal is to become a filmmaker. He is passionate about cinema and wants to write and direct his own films. He made his first proper film this year as part of his English Extension 2 major work, which it taught him a lot and made him excited for his future in the industry. Films are just another language – another method of communicating.
Rivka’s Story:
Rivka Hirschowitz
Rivka chose Classical Hebrew as it is a very useful subject because it gives skills to study any biblical text by themselves. She feels that as a Jew it is vital to understand how to engage with our written and oral texts. This ensures Jewish continuity and more importantly gives people the opportunity to discover their own heritage.
Ariella Rev
Or Israel receives his award
Or has always been speaking Hebrew as he moved to Australia from Israel when he was almost 11 years old. He stumbled onto the course by chance, his mother told him about it and the benefits of doing it as an accelerated course. So in year nine when he was presented the opportunity, he decided to take and it turned out better than he could have hoped for.
His advice to other students is that study is important but not to the point that it takes over your social life. “It was really important to maintain a healthy balance of social life and study in order for me to stay calm and on top of things during my HSC.”
His study tip is that is important to give a great focus to the areas which are difficult, but still revise and practice your strong suits because that is where you are going to excel.
Joseph Samuel of Coonabarabran came top in his school in the HSC!