HSC Health and Movement Science: complete 2026 guide to the focus areas and exam

Health and Movement Science is the new NESA Stage 6 course that replaces PDHPE. The first HSC examination is November 2026. It keeps the health-priorities and human-movement content that PDHPE students will recognise, but reframes the course around science: physiology, data and scientific-investigation skills, and a compulsory collaborative investigation.

This page is the index. Below you find the two Year 12 focus areas, the exam structure, scaling notes, study strategy, and links to every dot-point guide we have for HSC Health and Movement Science.

The two HSC focus areas

Year 12 Health and Movement Science is structured around two focus areas, each anchored by inquiry questions, plus a collaborative investigation that runs across the year.

Focus Area 1: Health in an Australian and global context

Health status and how it is measured (mortality, morbidity, burden of disease); the determinants of health and how they cluster to produce inequities; priority populations and priority health conditions (cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes); health promotion and the Ottawa Charter; the Australian health-care system, equity and access, and health expenditure; ageing and person-centred care; and global health, the Sustainable Development Goals and how Australia compares with other OECD nations.

Focus Area 2: Training for improved performance

The three energy systems and the training types that target each; acute physiological responses and chronic adaptations; the principles of training and program design; pre-exercise screening, fitness and performance testing, and designing sessions and yearly periodised programs; strength, power, speed and flexibility; skill acquisition; nutrition, hydration, supplementation and sleep; recovery strategies; injury prevention, rehabilitation and return to play; biomechanics for efficient movement; psychological strategies, strategies and tactics; technology and ethics; and drugs in sport.

The collaborative investigation

A compulsory, school-based scientific investigation conducted in teams. It develops the question-framing, variable-control, data-interpretation and reliability-judging skills that the exam tests through stimulus and data questions.

Exam structure

The HSC examination is a single 3-hour paper worth 100 marks. It combines:

• Objective-response (multiple-choice) questions testing recall and interpretation across both focus areas.
• Short-answer and stimulus/data questions that present a graph, table or scenario and ask you to describe a trend, calculate or interpret, and explain it - the scientific-investigation skill set.
• Extended-response questions that ask you to analyse, evaluate or assess the extent, drawing on syllabus frameworks and named, current examples.

Because the course is new, there are no real past HSC papers before 2026. The authentic practice in this guide is built on NESA's published sample examination materials and original, syllabus-aligned questions - never fabricated "real" papers.

How Health and Movement Science scales (2026)

Official scaling is not yet established: the first cohort sits the HSC in November 2026, so the first scaled means are published after that. As a reference point, the PDHPE course it replaces scaled to roughly 27-29 mean scaled marks per unit out of 50 - at the lower end among HSC subjects, rewarding strong written-response skill over raw memorisation.

The added scientific and data content may shift this slightly, but students should not assume Health and Movement Science scales like a laboratory science. Use the HSC ATAR calculator to test how it fits your subject mix, and check NESA's official report once the first cohort's results are reported.

Our HSC Health and Movement Science guides

Every dot point across the two focus areas has its own focused answer page with a plain-English explanation, the must-know frameworks and values, worked exam responses with marker's notes, fluency drills, graded practice questions, and original diagrams.

Browse the full set at /hsc/hms/syllabus.

Study strategy

Health and Movement Science rewards framework fluency plus current evidence. The recipe:

1. Learn the frameworks cold. The Ottawa Charter's five action areas, the categories of the determinants of health, the three energy systems and their fuel/duration/by-products, and the principles of training. Most extended-response marks hang off using a framework correctly.
2. Carry named examples and dated statistics. AIHW/ABS-style figures with a year, named campaigns and programs, named athletes and methods. A specific, dated example beats a vague generalisation in every band descriptor.
3. Drill the data skills. Practise describing trends, reading graphs and tables, and judging validity and reliability - the stimulus and data questions are where scientific-investigation skill is tested directly.
4. Write to the command word. "Describe" is not "evaluate". Build the habit of answering exactly what is asked, with a judgement when the question demands one.

System context

HSC Health and Movement Science sits inside the wider HSC system. Related explainers:

• How the HSC ATAR is calculated - UAC's aggregate and scaling.
• How HSC subjects are scaled - why practical/written subjects scale differently from laboratory sciences.
• HSC bonus points and EAS - subject-bonus points for health-science degrees at some universities.

For the official syllabus

NESA publishes the full Health and Movement Science syllabus, the sample examination materials, and assessment guidance at educationstandards.nsw.edu.au. The course is being examined for the first time in 2026, so check NESA directly for the most current sample materials and any updates.