Higher School Certificate requirements for students undertaking Life Skills courses

ACE 7005

Last Updated: 4 December 2017

To qualify for the award of a Higher School Certificate (HSC) all students must fulfil the requirements detailed in ACE 8004 Eligibility requirements for the Higher School Certificate.

Students are able to satisfy the requirements for the HSC by completing Life Skills courses.

Students with disability can also meet requirements for the HSC using a combination of Board Developed Courses (including Life Skills courses) and Vocational Education and Training (VET) Industry Curriculum Framework courses/options or a combination of Board Developed Courses and Board Endorsed Courses (including Content Endorsed Courses).

Stage 6 Life Skills courses have no HSC examinations and results cannot be used in the calculation of a student’s ATAR.

Time allocation for courses

When programming Life Skills courses all indicative hour requirements should be met. This will ensure the courses are credentialled on the HSC. Each Stage 6 Life Skills course has an indicative hour requirement of 120 hours in Year 11 and 120 hours in Year 12 with the exception of the Studies of Religion I Life Skills course which requires 60 indicative hours in both Year 11 and Year 12.
In some cases it may be necessary to vary the time allocated by increasing the number of hours of study for a course. When considering whether an increase in time is necessary, schools should ensure that indicative hour requirements for each enrolled course are met.