DesignTECH: Letters have been sent to all nominated students and their schools. Nominated students must login to the Students Online website to submit an online nomination form and digital images of their project by Thursday 19 November. Students will be advised of the outcome after 25 November.

OnSTAGE: Selection letters will be sent to all nominated individual and group performers and to students whose projects have been selected for exhibition in the week beginning 16 November. Schools will also receive written notification.

ENCORE: Nominations will close on Friday 20 November. Selection letters will be sent to students and schools in early December.

ARTEXPRESS: Nomination letters will be sent to students and schools in the week beginning 16 November. Nominated students must login to the Students Online website to submit an online nomination form by Monday 23 November. Final selection letters will be sent in early December.

Young Writers Showcase: Nominated students will be advised in the week beginning 21 December.

Texstyle: Final selection letters were sent out to students and schools on 13 November.

Callback: Nomination letters were issued in September. Students and schools will be advised of final selections in early December.

Students, parents and school staff are reminded that nomination for an HSC showcase does not indicate a particular mark for the student's major work or performance. There are many factors involved in final selection for a showcase event or exhibition, for example: the ability to transport a major project; the suitability of a performance for a particular kind of stage; the need to show a mix of performances or projects that demonstrate the scope of the relevant syllabus; the inclusion of students from locations around NSW. Most importantly, there are limits on the number of performances or works that can be included in any one year. Inevitably, there are many outstanding students who are not nominated or, having been nominated, are not selected for the final showcase.

This week all HSC students will receive a postcard with their PIN in their letterbox reminding them to login to Students Online to access their Assessment Rank Order Notice.

Assessment Rank Order Notices will be available on the Students Online website from 5.00 pm on Friday 13 November 2009, five days earlier than previously advised.

Students will see the order in which they have been ranked in their school for each course and must tell the school immediately if they think a ranking is incorrect. Any appeals must be lodged with School Principals by Friday 20 November.

It is very important that students check that their assessment ranks are correct in each course as these will affect their final HSC results. For an explanation of how this works, read about our HSC Aligning and Moderating Procedures.

Students will need their Student ID and their PIN to login to Students Online. The Student ID is the number students used during their HSC examinations. The PIN can be found on the front of the postcard students are receiving this week. It is important that the PIN be kept confidential.

Students should keep the postcard handy as they will require their PIN on Wednesday 16 December to obtain their HSC results via the internet, telephone or SMS.

Please note that PIN letters were sent to all schools for distribution to HSC students in May this year. This is the same PIN that will appear on the postcard - students already using Students Online should keep using their existing PIN!

Students who have not received their postcard by Monday 16 November should contact Student Records on (02) 9367 8001.

Don't miss out! Get your Board news fast and from the source with our easy email news alerts. Just enter your email address in the box on the right, and don't forget to confirm your subscription.

Key dates, including submission of School Certificate grades and HSC assessment marks, plus the starting dates for the School Certificate and Higher School Certificate are available on the Board's website.

'Australian Aesthetics: Symbols of Identity', by Mikolaj Falicz, part of the ARTEXPRESS Grafton Regional Gallery exhibition

ARTEXPRESS opens at Grafton Regional Gallery from 19 August to 20 September 2009.

The Gallery Guide for Grafton ARTEXPRESS is available now for preview, or for teachers to print and use as excursion notes with visiting students.

ARTEXPRESS is an annual exhibition of exemplary artworks created by students for the NSW Higher School Certificate Examination in Visual Arts.

The works represent a broad range of subject matter, approaches, styles and media, which may include painting, photomedia, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, documented forms, textiles and fibre, ceramics, time-based forms and collections of works.

For enquiries please contact ARTEXPRESS Coordinator Susanne Jones, (02) 9550 9121 or email artexpress@det.nsw.edu.au.

Don't miss out! Get your Board news fast and from the source with our easy email news alerts. Simply enter your address in the box to the right of this article and remember to verify when you get our confirmation message.

View the PRIME Tamworth video news story about the DesignTECH opening and the regional award winner, Daniel Brown.

View the Northern Daily Leader newspaper article.

A 2008 Higher School Certificate student from Carinya Christian School, Tamworth, has been named a regional award winner for his design of a compost tea brewer. Daniel Brown, a 2008 HSC Design and Technology student, is among students from the North Western region chosen to exhibit their major works in the regional exhibition of the HSC showcase, DesignTECH, at Ray Walsh House from 17 to 30 June 2009.

Daniel was today (17 June 2009) named the recipient of the UNSW Faculty of the Built Environment DesignTECH Regional Tour Award for the North Western region.

The Minister for Education and Training, Verity Firth, congratulated Daniel on receiving the Regional Tour Award for his project.

"As part of his HSC Design and Technology course, Daniel created an innovative system, called Microbe Magic. This is a compost tea brewer which pumps air through compost, depositing organisms into water to create an organic fertiliser.

"Air is pumped through a cylinder covered at the end with a mesh bag holding compost, known as a compost basket. The basket is suspended in a large container of water. Air is pumped through the cylinder for six or seven hours, forcing fungi, bacteria and other organisms into the water, creating a weak 'tea' solution.

"The compost basket is then removed from the container. Molasses, fish and other foods are added to the solution and air is pumped directly into it for 48 hours to enable the organisms to multiply.

"The final product is further diluted to create an organic fertiliser, which can be sprayed on foliage and builds up the micro-organisms in the soil.

"It is an outstanding project, and we wish Daniel well in his future studies and career," Ms Firth said.

The UNSW Faculty of the Built Environment sponsors the Regional Tour Award in recognition of talented young designers from regional NSW who 'play a future role in designing for a sustainable future'.

Ms Firth said some of the State's best young designers were on show at the Tamworth DesignTECH exhibition.

"Outstanding works by four students from the North Western region, including Daniel Brown, were specially chosen for the local version of the DesignTECH exhibition," she said.

"They include decorative French doors created by Kellie Smith, of Carinya Christian School, Tamworth, and a luggage set by Stephanie Brummell, of PLC Armidale. The luggage was included in the Grafton DesignTECH exhibition because Stephanie lives at Glen Innes.

"A two-in-one chair design by Amanda Scott, of Tamworth, who completed the course with Dubbo School of Distance Education, was also chosen for exhibition but was not available for display.

"A fifth local student, Andrew van Baal (O'Connor Catholic College), whose work was exhibited at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, is part of the regional tour. His device which locks brakes safely is also on show at Ray Walsh House along with 14 other projects on tour."

The Board of Studies NSW runs DesignTECH in association with the Department of Education and Training to highlight the talent and skills demonstrated by HSC Design and Technology students. Ms Firth encouraged students and residents of Tamworth and the North Western region to visit the exhibition.

"DesignTECH gives the community the chance to see the innovative work and technological applications emerging from the Design and Technology curriculum in NSW," she said.

"The projects, which meet an identified need in the community, are immensely creative, innovative and practical."

The DesignTECH exhibition will be open in Ray Walsh House, 437 Peel Street, Tamworth, until 30 June 2009.

See the DesignTECH gallery guides and the remaining exhibition dates for Wagga Wagga and Southern Highlands.

Don't miss out! Get your Board news fast and from the source with our easy email news alerts. Simply enter your address in the box to the right of this article and remember to verify when you get our confirmation message.

Republished as a reminder of due dates for annual reports.

BOS 07/09

Every non-government school must produce a 2008 annual report and disclose it publicly by 30 June 2009. Ideally, the annual report will be published on the school's website.

The school must also submit an electronic copy of its annual report to the Board of Studies by 30 June 2009.

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The 2009 HSC written examination timetable will be online today (1 May 2009). Exams for an estimated 67,000 students begin on Tuesday 20 October and finish on Friday 13 November.

In 2009, students will present for 111 written examinations on 17 days, starting with Business Studies and Classical Greek Continuers.

The two main exam papers for English, the only mandatory subject, will be held on Wednesday 21 October and Friday 23 October. The two largest Mathematics courses will be examined on Monday 26 October (General Mathematics) and Tuesday 27 October (Mathematics). Read the 2009 HSC exam timetable

The full 2009 HSC exam timetable will be published today - but did you know every HSC student also has a personalised exam timetable waiting for them at Students Online?

Letters will arrive in schools from today (1 May 2009) giving Year 12 students the Personal Identification Number (PIN) they need, along with their student number, to log in to Students Online for a personalised HSC study experience.

Students Online is a one-stop study shop for all students' HSC needs.

From this one easy location you can view your own HSC exams at a glance in a personalised timetable. You can customise the home page to suit yourself. You can set priorities for your assessment tasks and study plans. You can also easily access the vast HSC study resources on the Board's website, as you'll find many links are already tailored to your own subject enrolments.

Check with your school today to see if the package of PIN letters has arrived. Once you have your PIN letter, log in to Students Online and you could also be one of the lucky winners of a $50 University Co-op Bookshop voucher!

More details on the Co-op voucher competition will be published here soon - so subscribe to our email alerts in the box on the right to be sure you don't miss the news.

Times change, the way we communicate changes, and the Board Bulletin is changing too.

In schools this week is the first Board Bulletin Digest - a print index of all the articles, Official Notices and resources that have appeared online in Term 1.

On the front page is a reminder of just how important it now is to subscribe to the Board's email news alert service.

Email subscription to Board news is fast, it's easy and it won't overload your inbox. Thousands of teachers, students, parents and others are already subscribed to ensure they don't miss out on important news and resources.

Unlike some email subscriptions, the Board's news alert service is quick and simple. You won't be asked for your home address, or your date of birth - just to enter your email address (here on the right of this article) and then to check for a confirmation message in your inbox and click on the verifying link.

Currently, as an extra incentive to sign up, the Board has a number of double passes to the Sydney Morning Herald HSC and Careers Expo to give away to new email subscribers. If you are already a subscriber why not pass this link on to a student, teacher or parent who might like free tickets to the Expo, as well as Board news from the source?

Questions? Send them to information@bos.nsw.edu.au

The 2009 Higher School Certificate Languages Oral Examinations Timetable is now available.

This document has important information for students, including dates and other arrangements for the oral exams.

It also explains what students may and may not bring to Board of Studies exam centres.

The Languages Oral Examinations will be conducted from 13 August to 26 September 2009.

Download the PDF of the 2009 Higher School Certificate Languages Oral Examinations Timetable.