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English and Mathematics are the only subjects examined under new syllabuses in the 2027 HSC. The sciences change later, on their own timetable, and this guide gives the date for every subject.
Two faculties, and only two. English and Mathematics are examined under new NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) syllabuses for the first time in the 2027 HSC. Every other subject continues under its existing syllabus in 2027, including all four sciences.
This is the part most families get wrong. The NSW Curriculum Reform is one program with one name, so it reads as though everything changes at once. It does not. The reform runs subject by subject across several years, and the only Year 11 and 12 courses whose first new-syllabus HSC exam falls in 2027 are English and Mathematics.
The change is already underway rather than approaching. Under the NESA implementation timeline, Year 11 students started the new English and Maths courses in Term 1 2026, and Year 12 students started them in Term 4 2026. A student beginning Year 12 English or Maths this term is already in the new course.
Each syllabus has its own first teaching year and its own first HSC examination, and the gap between them is what determines which cohort is affected. The table below is the whole reform for Year 11 and 12, in one place.
| Subject | First taught in schools | First HSC examination |
|---|---|---|
| English Standard, Advanced, EAL/D, Extension, Studies, Life Skills | Year 11 from Term 1 2026, Year 12 from Term 4 2026 | 2027 |
| Mathematics Standard, Advanced, Extension 1, Extension 2, Life Skills | Year 11 from Term 1 2026, Year 12 from Term 4 2026 | 2027 |
| Biology and Physics | 2027 | 2028 |
| Chemistry and Earth and Environmental Science | 2028 | 2029 |
Two things follow from that table. Mathematics Extension 2 is in the first wave, so an Extension 2 student sitting the HSC in 2027 is sitting a new-syllabus paper with no past HSC papers behind it. And a Year 11 student in 2027 will study new English and Maths alongside a Biology or Physics course that is also new, while their Chemistry course is still the old one.
Each of the new syllabuses is published in full on the NSW Curriculum website, and NESA lists the complete set on its new syllabuses page.
Six courses were reformed together: English Standard, English Advanced, English EAL/D, English Extension, English Studies and English Life Skills. NESA describes three substantive changes: explicit teaching of language and literacy through a range of literary experiences, defined opportunities to study texts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors, and streamlined content intended to give teachers room to take students to the highest outcomes.
Streamlined is the word worth noticing. Less content is not the same as an easier course. When content is cut and outcomes are not, what remains carries more weight per mark, and assessment moves toward depth on fewer things.
The practical consequence for a Year 12 student right now is that the back catalogue is thinner than usual. Past HSC papers written for the previous syllabus still test skills that transfer, close reading and sustained argument among them, but they are not a guide to the structure of the 2027 paper. NESA’s English syllabus development page is the source for what the courses now require.
Reading widely and writing often has always been the advice. It matters more in a first examination year, because familiarity with a paper’s shape is the one advantage nobody in the 2027 cohort has.
Five courses were reformed together: Mathematics Standard, Mathematics Advanced, Mathematics Extension 1, Mathematics Extension 2 and Mathematics Life Skills. All five are examined for the first time under the new syllabuses in 2027. The implementation ran in two steps, Year 11 from Term 1 2026 and Year 12 from Term 4 2026, which is set out on the NESA Mathematics syllabus development page.
The Extension 2 position is the one worth planning around. It is a one-year course sat by a small, strong cohort, and in 2027 that cohort will be the first to sit it in its new form. If you are taking Extension 2, treat older papers as practice in technique rather than as a model of the paper you will sit, and lean on your teacher’s reading of the new syllabus document rather than on the shape of past exams. Our guide to Year 12 Mathematics Extension 2 covers what the course involves.
Related course: Year 12 English and Mathematics
Matrix teaches a school term’s content before the school teaches it, which is why the Year 12 courses opened in October rather than January. For the 2027 cohort that timing matters more than usual: this is a first examination year, so the students who are ahead are the ones with time to spend on unfamiliar question types rather than on catching up.
Year 12 courses run nine weekly lessons of three hours, in classes capped at 15, on campus across Sydney or online through Matrix+. Courses include a theory book, weekly writing or problem homework with feedback, and an end-of-term mock exam. See the Year 12 English Advanced and Year 12 Mathematics Advanced course pages for current fees and timetables. Late enrolments are accepted until the third week of term, and the NSW term dates page lists every start date.
Not in 2027, and not all together. Biology and Physics are taught in schools from 2027 and examined for the HSC in 2028. Chemistry and Earth and Environmental Science are taught from 2028 and examined in 2029. NESA also released a dedicated Life Skills syllabus aligned to each of the four disciplines, which is the first time each discipline has had its own.
So a student sitting the 2027 HSC sits the existing Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Earth and Environmental Science syllabuses, unchanged. A student sitting the 2028 HSC sits new Biology or Physics, and the existing Chemistry.
| If you are sitting the HSC in | Your English and Maths | Your Biology or Physics | Your Chemistry |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Previous syllabus, the last year of it | Existing syllabus | Existing syllabus |
| 2027 | New syllabus, first year | Existing syllabus | Existing syllabus |
| 2028 | New syllabus | New syllabus, first year | Existing syllabus |
| 2029 | New syllabus | New syllabus | New syllabus, first year |
If you are choosing subjects for Year 11 now, this table is the one to keep. It does not tell you which subjects to pick, but it does tell you which of your courses will have a thin bank of past papers behind them when you sit them.
It depends entirely on when you sit the HSC, and the answer for most families is less dramatic than the word “reform” suggests. Students who have already finished are unaffected. Students starting Year 12 now are in the first examined cohort for English and Maths. Students in Years 9 and 10 will meet the changes subject by subject as they go.
If you sat the 2026 HSC, nothing here applies. The 2026 HSC was the last examination under the previous English and Mathematics syllabuses, and your results are unaffected by what follows.
If you are in Year 11 in 2026, you began the new English and Maths courses in Term 1 and moved into the Year 12 courses in Term 4. You will sit the first new-syllabus HSC in 2027. Your sciences are unchanged.
If you are in Year 10 in 2026, you start Year 11 in 2027 with new English, new Maths, and new Biology or Physics if you take them. Chemistry will still be the existing syllabus in your Year 11 year.
If you are in Year 9 in 2026, by the time you reach Year 11 in 2028 every subject in this guide has changed over, Chemistry and Earth and Environmental Science included.
This is the question families ask first, and the honest answer is that the mechanism people worry about does not work the way they imagine. HSC marks are standards-referenced. Your mark in a course is aligned to a performance band that describes what a student at that standard knows and can do in that course, rather than to a position in a queue behind previous years’ candidates.
NESA sets out how this works on its page on determining HSC results. The process is called standards setting, and the band descriptors are written for each course. Band 6 covers 90 to 100 marks, Band 5 covers 80 to 89, and so on down. Those descriptions are about your performance in the course you studied.
What a first examination year does change is preparation, not marking. Every student in the 2027 cohort faces the same thin bank of past papers, the same unfamiliar paper structure and the same teachers reading a new syllabus for the first time. The disadvantage, such as it is, is shared evenly, and it is the kind that preparation answers.
The ATAR is a separate matter and it is not NESA’s. It is calculated by the Universities Admissions Centre from HSC marks, and scaling operates on each year’s cohort in that year. If you want to understand how your marks become an ATAR, our ATAR calculator and the UAC site are the places to look, not the syllabus documents.
One practical consequence is worth planning for. In a year without past papers, the quality of the practice questions you see matters more, because they are standing in for a resource that does not exist yet.
Work from the syllabus document rather than from past papers, and treat the two as doing different jobs. The syllabus tells you what is examinable. Past papers tell you how questions have been asked, and in a first examination year that second source is unreliable in a way it has never been before.
Three habits are worth more than usual this year.
Read the syllabus yourself. It is published free on the NSW Curriculum site and most students never open it. In a first examination year it is the only document that describes your course with authority, and the outcomes in it are the language your marking guidelines will use.
Learn the command verbs. They did not change with the reform, and they are the most reliable thing you can study about an unfamiliar paper. Our guide to responding to NESA key words covers what each one requires.
Use past papers for skills, not for structure. An older English paper still rewards close reading. An older Extension 2 paper still rewards fluent proof. Neither tells you how your paper will be laid out, so practise the thinking and hold the format loosely.
Ask your teacher what has changed in your specific course. Schools have had the syllabus documents since 2024 and a year of planning before implementation, so your teachers know their subject’s changes in far more detail than any general guide can give.
Less than the word “reform” suggests, and most of it is conversation rather than spending. The change is real, but it is a change of document, not a change in what a strong student does. Reading closely, writing often and practising problems until technique is automatic were the advice under the old syllabus and remain the advice under the new one.
Three things are genuinely worth doing.
Ask the school what changed in your child’s specific courses, and ask it of the faculty rather than the front office. Schools received the syllabus documents in 2024 and had a planning year before implementation, so heads of English and Mathematics can tell you precisely what moved in their course. A general article cannot.
Check that the resources at home match the new syllabus. Textbooks and workbooks bought for an older cohort, or passed down from an older sibling who sat the HSC in 2025 or 2026, are written to the previous English and Mathematics syllabuses. They are not worthless, but they are not aligned, and a student revising from them will spend time on content that has moved.
Resist the urge to treat a first examination year as an emergency. Fear is not a study plan, and a student who believes their year is uniquely cursed works worse, not better. The cohort sitting the 2027 HSC is in the same position as every first cohort before it, and those cohorts have gone on to the same range of results as the ones either side.
If your child is in Year 10 and choosing Year 11 subjects, the timeline table above is more useful than any general advice. It tells you which of their courses will be newly examined in their HSC year, which is worth knowing before they commit to a pattern of study.
For English and Mathematics, yes. The 2027 HSC is the first examination under the new English 11-12 and Mathematics 11-12 syllabuses, and the 2026 HSC was the last under the previous ones. Every other Year 11 and 12 subject, including all four sciences, is examined under its existing syllabus in 2027.
Yes. Mathematics Extension 2 is part of the first wave with Standard, Advanced and Extension 1, and all are examined under the new syllabuses from 2027. Year 12 students began the new courses in Term 4 2026. Extension 2 students sitting the 2027 HSC will be the first cohort to sit the course in its new form.
Biology and Physics are taught in NSW schools from 2027 and examined for the HSC in 2028. Chemistry and Earth and Environmental Science are taught from 2028 and examined in 2029. NESA also released a dedicated Life Skills syllabus aligned to each discipline, which is new.
For skills, yes. For format, no. Past papers written for the previous syllabus still test close reading, sustained argument and mathematical technique, all of which transfer. They are not a reliable guide to the structure of a 2027 paper, because no paper has yet been sat under the new syllabuses.
All the new Year 11 and 12 syllabuses are published free on the NSW Curriculum website, and NESA lists the complete set with their implementation dates on its curriculum reform pages. Both are public and neither requires a login. Your school will also have the documents, since they were released to schools ahead of implementation.
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Written by Matrix Education
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