Zoe Moffatt
It was a year of surprise, hard work and resilience for Kyneton High School students, who recorded the school’s highest ATAR results in more than five years.
Twenty-seven students from the school completed their Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) and received an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR), with more students not receiving a score or completing Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL).
VCE coordinator Rosemary White said the highest students got the best ATARs in more than five years.
“It was a great bunch of students, they had most of their year 9 and a bit of year 10 in COVID, so they are very resilient,” she said.
“From our scored VCE students, almost all of them are hoping to head to university… [and] it looks like most of them would have gotten their top choice.”
For the school’s dux, Zoe Bespalov, it is all still sinking.
When she opened her results to see a score of 94.05, she said she was shocked and taken aback.
“I would have been delighted with the low 80s, so this was really so far beyond what I was expecting,” Zoe said.
“It was an intense and stressful [year]. It was really long, and it was exhausting.”
Looking forward to next year, Zoe said she is hoping to study a bachelor of arts, and highlights the amount of impact teachers have on students during their final year.
“I think there’s a definite correlation that I’ve observed between the subjects where I’ve done really well and the amount of time that the teachers of those subjects have given me,” she said.
“They’ve been so available throughout the year and that, I think, is what has really helped me to do as well as I possibly could in those areas.”
While celebrations are on the horizon for students across the state, Zoe said she is still in shock and is yet to decide what to do to celebrate her unexpected result.
