The ACT Senior Secondary Certificate is not the New South Wales certificate, and Canberra’s Year 12 students do not sit any external subject exams at all. Assessment in the ACT is continuous and school-based, and the one common test everybody sits is the ACT Scaling Test (AST), run on the Tuesday and Wednesday of week 6 of Term 3. In 2026 that was 25 and 26 August, and the approved second sitting is on Tuesday 20 and Wednesday 21 October 2026, the Tuesday and Wednesday of week 2 of Term 4. Every date and rule in this guide comes from the ACT Board of Senior Secondary Studies (BSSS), the body that awards the certificate.
If you moved to Canberra from interstate, or your child is the first in the family through the ACT system, the vocabulary is unfamiliar: T courses, majors and minors, unit scores, OCS scaling, the Tertiary Entrance Statement. This guide walks through each piece in the order it matters, and ends with the second-sitting rules that matter right now.
What is the ACT Senior Secondary Certificate?
It is the qualification the BSSS awards to students who complete Years 11 and 12 at an ACT college. According to the BSSS, the certificate “consists of: the certificate, detailing your years of attendance and the college you are graduating from, and the Record of Achievement, that details your studies throughout college”. To earn the standard package a student must complete at least 17 standard units, across a minimum of four different A, T, M, H or E courses from at least three course areas, including at least two A, T or M courses, one of which must be in the English course area.
A standard unit is 55 hours of study, typically one semester. The letters are course types set by the BSSS: a T course is accredited “as providing appropriate preparation for higher education”, an A course is accredited as educationally sound for Years 11 and 12 but is not scored for the ATAR, since only T and H courses receive course scores, an M course is for students who meet specific intellectual disability criteria, an H course is designed and accredited by a higher education provider, and E courses recognise vocational (VET) outcomes. The letter that matters for university entry is T.
Why are there no external exams in the ACT?
Because the system was built that way. The BSSS states plainly: “Assessment in the ACT is continuous school-based assessment. This means there are no external subject-based examinations.” Courses are taught and assessed unit by unit, teachers set and mark the assessment, and moderation “is conducted every semester to ensure comparability of grades from different schools”.
The obvious question is how a Physics score from one college can be compared with a Physics score from another when nobody sits the same exam. The answer is the AST, which the BSSS describes as “a higher order thinking and problem solving examination” used “to compare scores from different schools and support calculation of the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR)”.
What is the ACT Scaling Test and who has to sit it?
The AST is designed by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). The BSSS rule is unambiguous: “All students who are enrolled in Year 12 and who wish to gain an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank must complete all parts of the AST.” It is not a subject and it does not appear as a subject score. It exists to scale.
There are three papers across two days. From the BSSS AST page and the AST Student Information Booklet 2026:
| Paper | Standard time | Content |
|---|---|---|
| Short Response Test | 2 hours | 19 to 25 questions testing thinking and reasoning; written answers |
| Multiple Choice Test | 2 hours 15 minutes | 80 questions grouped into units, each based on stimulus such as a passage, graph or table |
| Writing Task | 2 hours 30 minutes | One argumentative response of about 600 words to stimulus material; minimum 200 words |
In the 2026 first sitting the two shorter papers were sat on Tuesday 25 August and the Writing Task on Wednesday 26 August. Calculators and every other electronic device are banned; a printed dictionary without a thesaurus is allowed.
How do unit scores become an ATAR in the ACT?
This is the chain, and each link is a BSSS rule.
- Unit scores. Each T unit produces a score from the college’s own assessment.
- Course scores. “Colleges calculate a course score for each student in each T or H course from their best 80% unit scores.” A weak first semester does not have to sink a major.
- OCS scaling. “Other Course Score (OCS) scaling is used to adjust course scores to bring them to a mean and standard deviation related to the student’s performance in their best 4 course scores and the ACT Scaling Test (AST).” This is where the AST does its work: it sets the level of each college’s scores against a common measure.
- General Achievement. “A measure of General Achievement (GA) is calculated by adding 0.8 of her/his AST score and best 3.6 course scores.”
- Aggregate Score. “The Aggregate Score is the number produced by adding the best three scaled scores from major courses, and 0.6 of the next best course score (either major or minor).”
- ATAR. Aggregates are ranked from highest to lowest, and “this ranking is then converted to an age rank (ATAR) by using a table supplied by the NSW Technical Committee on Scaling”. That is why an ACT ATAR and a NSW ATAR sit on the same scale even though the systems are completely different underneath.
The practical consequence: the AST is not “worth” a fixed percentage of the ATAR the way an external exam is elsewhere. It shifts the scale that every course score sits on, so coasting through it because “it isn’t a subject” is the most common ACT-specific mistake, and the one we warn Canberra families about first.
What do you need for a Tertiary Entrance Statement?
The Tertiary Entrance Statement (TES) is the separate document that reports the ATAR. The BSSS requirements for the standard package are: complete a minimum of 20 standard units during senior secondary studies; form at least four majors and one minor, or three majors and three minors, from A, T, M, H or E courses; complete at least three majors and one minor classified T or H; and sit all components of the ACT Scaling Test. Under the BSSS definitions a major requires a minimum of 3.5 standard units and a minor a minimum of 2, so the choice between a major and a minor in Year 11 has an ATAR consequence two years later.
Who can sit the AST second sitting on 20 and 21 October 2026?
Not everyone who would like a second go. The BSSS booklet states that “the second sitting is provided for students who are unable to attend the first sitting, due to illness, misadventure, or other exceptional circumstances beyond the control of the student or their family”, and that “approval to attend the second sitting will not be granted automatically”. The Executive Director of the BSSS considers each complete application.
- Illness before or during a paper: seek medical attention and have Part 2 of the Second Sitting Application, the Confidential Medical Report, completed within 24 hours. A certificate that only says the student “has a medical condition” is not sufficient.
- Applications go through the college’s AST Coordinator and, for the first sitting, were due by close of business on the Wednesday after AST week.
- Holidays and avoidable travel are not accepted. State or national representation, or a “significant and unrepeatable commitment related to future work or future study”, may be.
- A student who cannot attend either sitting because of illness or misadventure can apply for an exemption, which is “only given in extraordinary circumstances”.
- Students have 7 days from notification to seek a review of a second-sitting decision by the Board Chair.
For 2026 the second sitting runs Sessions 1 and 2 on Tuesday 20 October and Session 3 on Wednesday 21 October, with session times listed as to be advised in the BSSS calendar. If your child has approval, treat those two days as the most important of Term 4.
What counts as a serious attempt?
“A serious attempt on all three components of AST is required to be eligible for an ATAR.” The BSSS minimums are: at least 200 original words in the Writing Task, an original response to questions worth at least half the marks in the Short Response Test, and answers to at least half of the Multiple Choice questions “without any apparent systematic selection or strings of choice”. A student who panics and pattern-fills the multiple choice can lose their ATAR eligibility, not just marks.
When do ACT students get their ATAR in 2026?
Two official sources currently give two dates, and we will not pick one for you. The BSSS 2026 calendar lists ATARs released through Student Profiles Online on Tuesday 15 December 2026, alongside certificates available for collection. UAC’s key dates page lists the NSW and ACT ATAR release at 9.00am on Wednesday 16 December 2026. The most likely reading is that the BSSS releases to students first and UAC publishes the following morning, but neither body has said so, so plan for the 15th and check with your college in December.
How should an ACT student prepare, if there is no exam to cram for?
By treating every unit as the exam, because it is. The best 80 per cent rule forgives one weak unit, not two, and the AST deserves the seriousness an interstate student gives their written exams. Concretely:
- Year 11: choose majors deliberately. Three T majors and a T minor is the floor for a TES, and majors are where the aggregate comes from.
- Term 2 of Year 12: start AST practice. The Writing Task is an argumentative essay of about 600 words in 150 minutes, which is a learnable skill. Our English tutoring in Canberra is built around exactly that kind of structured argument.
- The Multiple Choice and Short Response papers reward reasoning from data, graphs and text. Maths tutoring in Canberra that focuses on interpreting quantitative information, rather than drilling procedures, transfers directly.
Where NextStepAcademy fits in
We provide tutoring in Canberra and online across the ACT, from NAPLAN in primary school through high school to Year 12 T courses and AST preparation. Our tutors understand that ACT assessment is continuous, so the work is steady unit-by-unit support rather than a burst before an exam that does not exist. Every family starts with our First Lesson Guarantee: if you do not love the first lesson, you do not pay for it.
Book a first lesson before Term 4 starts on 13 October and give the final units of Year 12 the attention the ACT system rewards.
Frequently asked questions
Does the ACT have external Year 12 exams?
No. The BSSS states that assessment in the ACT is continuous school-based assessment and that there are no external subject-based examinations. The only common test is the ACT Scaling Test, which is used to scale course scores between colleges.
When is the AST second sitting in 2026?
Tuesday 20 and Wednesday 21 October 2026, the Tuesday and Wednesday of week 2 of Term 4, according to the BSSS 2026 calendar. Attendance requires prior approval for illness, misadventure or exceptional circumstances; it is not open to anyone who simply wants another attempt.
How is the ACT ATAR calculated?
Course scores come from the best 80 per cent of unit scores, are adjusted by OCS scaling using the AST, and are combined into an Aggregate Score from the best three scaled major course scores plus 0.6 of the next best course. Aggregates are ranked and converted to an ATAR with a table supplied by the NSW Technical Committee on Scaling.
What do you need to get a Tertiary Entrance Statement in the ACT?
At least 20 standard units; four majors and one minor, or three majors and three minors; at least three majors and one minor classified T or H; and all components of the AST, per the BSSS.
When are ACT ATARs released in 2026?
The BSSS 2026 calendar lists Tuesday 15 December 2026 through Student Profiles Online, while UAC lists 9.00am Wednesday 16 December 2026 for NSW and ACT. Check with your college in December, and plan for the earlier date.