HSC Syllabus Guide: Current NESA Syllabuses and the 2027 Maths Change

An HSC syllabus is NESA's official document for one course: the outcomes, the content you are taught, how school assessment is weighted and what each performance band means. Most courses are still on their 2017 Stage 6 syllabus, but all four Mathematics courses move to new 2024 syllabuses, with the first HSC exam in 2027.

This guide is current as of 26 October 2026. It lists the versions we have checked against NESA's own documents. For anything marked unverified below, confirm the version on NESA's website, because syllabus versions change with NESA official notices.

What is an HSC syllabus?

Every Board Developed Course is set out in a NESA syllabus (Mathematics Standard 1 and Standard 2 share one), and it is the reference point for three groups. Your teacher plans the year from it. The school sets assessment tasks that follow its outcomes and component weightings. NESA writes the HSC exam from it. NESA fixes which components are assessed and their weightings in each syllabus, and your school then sets the individual tasks and dates.

A syllabus is not a textbook or a study guide. It tells you what you are expected to know, understand and do, not how to learn it. Treat it as the checklist for a course. For how past papers examine it, see our HSC past papers guide.

The terms you will meet in a Stage 6 syllabus:

• Outcomes: statements of what you should be able to do, each with a code. The 2024 Mathematics syllabuses use one working mathematically outcome that applies to every focus area, plus content outcomes by year.
• Content: the dot points you are taught. In the 2024 Mathematics syllabuses these sit under areas of study and focus areas.
• Assessment components and weightings: how the school-based mark is built. In the 2024 Mathematics Advanced and Extension 2 syllabuses the two components are Knowledge and understanding of course content (50%) and Skills in Working mathematically (50%).
• Performance band descriptions: the holistic descriptions of Bands 1 to 6 (E1 to E4 in Extension courses). They describe course-level performance, not a marking rubric. Our HSC bands guide covers how bands become marks.

For how the school mark and the exam mark combine into your HSC mark, read How the HSC works.

Which HSC syllabus versions are current in 2026?

"Nothing announced in the documents we hold" is a statement about our sources, not a guarantee. NESA can publish a change by official notice, so check its syllabus page for your course at the start of each year.

We have not verified the version for other HSC courses, including English Standard, so this table leaves them out.

What is changing in the new HSC Maths syllabus?

All four Mathematics syllabuses were published as 2024 syllabuses and are "to be implemented from 2026". The dates are the same for each:

• Term 4 2026: schools start teaching the new syllabus for Year 12.
• 2027: the first HSC examination for the new syllabus.

The 2026 cohort sat its Mathematics exams under the 2017 syllabuses. Mathematics Advanced was on Monday 19 October 2026. The 2027 cohort is the first one examined on the new content, and no marking feedback exists yet for a cohort assessed under it.

The changes below are our comparison of the 2017 and 2024 syllabuses at dot-point level. They are not a complete list, and NESA describes the old and new content in its own documents.

Mathematics Advanced

• The Year 12 Descriptive Statistics and Bivariate Data Analysis topic is gone. We found no mention of bivariate data, scatter plots, regression or outliers anywhere in the 2024 syllabus.
• Sequences and series is now its own area of study, instead of sitting inside financial mathematics.
• Discrete random variables moved from Year 11 to Year 12.
• Graph transformations, other than of trigonometric functions, moved into Year 11. There is no separate Year 12 Trigonometric functions area, and the trigonometry transformations now sit in a Functions focus area.
• NESA's 2027 sample paper says the Advanced exam will not include questions shared with other Mathematics exams. In 2024 and 2025 some Advanced questions matched Standard 2 questions.

Mathematics Extension 1

• The Year 12 trigonometry focus area is now Inverse trigonometric functions. Trigonometric equations moved to Year 11.
• The binomial distribution area now includes the sampling distribution of the mean and the central limit theorem, in place of the sample proportion section.

Mathematics Extension 2

• It stays a Year 12 only course of 1 unit and 60 hours.
• Most introductory three-dimensional vector content moved to Extension 1, though the Extension 2 exam still assumes Advanced and Extension 1 content.
• The mechanics focus area opens with a new sub-heading, Forces and further motion in a straight line, which gathers the Newton's laws content.
• The assessment details are now printed in the syllabus. The school-based components are Knowledge and understanding of course content (50%) and Skills in Working mathematically (50%).

Mathematics Standard (Standard 1 and Standard 2)

• Standard 1 and Standard 2 share one syllabus document. You complete the Year 11 focus areas first, then the Year 12 focus areas for your pathway.
• Year 12 Standard 1 has no Networks focus area. Networks content sits in Year 11.
• Probability moved from Year 11 into Year 12 Standard 1 as Relative frequency and probability.

Across the Mathematics courses, NESA now numbers outcomes differently (a single working mathematically outcome plus course-specific codes), has dropped the old subtopic codes and applications-and-modelling tags, and refers to digital tools and spreadsheets more explicitly.

Where can I find each subject syllabus on AusGrader?

We publish the units and dot points for the courses we cover. Each page sets out the course by unit:

• HSC Biology syllabus
• HSC Chemistry syllabus
• HSC Physics syllabus

We do not yet have syllabus pages for the Mathematics courses or English. Until we do, the official PDFs on NESA's website are the source. For subject pages with past papers, see the HSC hub.

How should you use a syllabus when you study?

Read the syllabus for your course once at the start of Year 12, and again before trials. The useful parts are the content dot points, the outcomes and the assessment section.

1. Turn dot points into questions. If you cannot answer a dot point from memory, it is a gap.
2. Use the assessment section to plan. It tells you the school-based components, so you know what your school tasks are measuring.
3. Match key words to the glossary. NESA's syllabus and exam questions use its key words. Our HSC command terms guide covers them.
4. Use papers as practice, not as a map. Past papers show how NESA examines content. They reflect the syllabus they were set under, and the mapping between an old paper and the new dot points is ours, not NESA's.

For exam technique once you have the content, see how to prepare for HSC exams and HSC trials and trial papers.

Common mistakes with HSC syllabuses

• Treating old Mathematics papers as a topic list for 2027. Bivariate data, for example, was examined under the 2017 Advanced syllabus and is absent from the 2024 one.
• Assuming a content change means a new exam style. NESA's sample 2027 papers show how it could examine the new syllabus, but they are samples, not HSC papers.
• Relying on a syllabus summary from a third party. Check dates and versions against NESA.