Policies and Procedures

Clear policies and procedures help ensure the boarding school operates in a safe, organised, and supportive manner for all students, families, and staff. At Hurlstone Agricultural High School, these processes provide consistency, clarify expectations, and support the wellbeing, learning, and daily routines of students living within the boarding community.

This page provides an overview of the most important boarding school policies, procedures, and guidelines that families and students may need to access throughout the school year. These include processes relating to student wellbeing, leave arrangements, travel, attendance, communication, health and safety, behaviour expectations, and residential life.

Families are encouraged to regularly review this information to ensure they are familiar with the expectations and procedures that support a positive, respectful, and well-functioning boarding environment.

Emergencies and Evacuations

Evacuation procedures are regularly reviewed and practiced within the boarding school sometimes with warning and other times without. All students are trained in evacuation procedures and must respond promptly to all alarms following the school procedures.

Fire Alarm Procedures

In the event of a fire alarm all students are required to quickly and orderly evacuate the buildings via their nearest exit and proceed to their evacuation areas for a roll call. All students are to remain at their assembly areas until the buildings are declared safe by the fire brigade. • The evacuation point for all boys is Room 48. • The evacuation point for all girls is classroom CR1.

Dining Room and Kitchen Procedures

Students must attend breakfast and dinner each day.

Students are responsible for clearing their table, placing scraps and rubbish in bins and returning their plate and cutlery to the servery window.

Students are not permitted to enter the commercial boarding kitchen at any time.

Meals served on dining room crockery should be consumed in the dining room. Plastic and takeaway containers are available if needed. Take away meals should be ordered in advance for excursions and on occasions a meal needs to be saved when students are on leave. This is done by marking the details on the whiteboard, near the servery, the day before (or at breakfast if dinner needs to be saved).

Students are not permitted to use mobile phones during mealtimes – all phones should be ‘off and away’.

Early Breakfast

Early breakfast is available to students from 6:30am in the dining room if required. Students must place a note on their door stating the reason for early breakfast eg. excursions, Period 0 class, sport training. Students who require a breakfast prior to 6:30am can collect food from the duty room the evening before.

Driving/Parking for students

Students who wish to drive and/or park vehicles at school should make application with the Boarding School Deputy prior to beginning to drive.

If the application is accepted, they must observe speed limits at all times, including within school grounds and park their car in the allocated parking area as stated by the Deputy Principal. Keys must be kept in the locked keytel in the duty room (handed in as soon as students return to school) and will be handed over to the student when they have approved leave that states they will be driving (approved by parents and school). Students are NOT permitted to drive other students, except siblings (with permission from parents). Students who fail to abide by these rules may have driving and parking privileges removed. Passengers (who are boarders) that are approved must also have leave that states they will be driven by the student driving.

Excursion/Incursion Payments and Permission

Many activities held within the boarding school are free. For activities that require payment, this should be done online - in the same way payments are made for all school activities, from school bytes. Permission notes for excursions for boarding school activities and day school activities are distributed electronically to parent email addresses via school bytes. Most events can have permission granted from parents online (except camp and recreational swimming). Events requiring permission will have a date and time that this needs to be completed by, to allow organisation and planning for events.

Students may order a lunch to take on excursions/day school activities. Orders must be placed the day before it is needed on the whiteboard in the dining room and collected on the morning of the excursion/activity.

Dress Standards

Students must wear school uniform at breakfast and lunch on school days. Neat casual clothes must be worn at all other times. Shoestring straps, pyjamas, bare midriffs, singlets or dirty or torn clothing are not allowed in the dining room for any meal.

Financial Assistance

Financial assistance for day school expenses such as excursions and uniforms or supplies can be made if families are experiencing financial hardship, by applying for funds using the School Assistance Scheme. Applications are confidential and are made to the Principal. The form to apply for financial assistance is available on the school website.

There are several scholarships and allowances that students and families may qualify and apply including: Boarding Scholarships for Isolated Students (BSIS) from NSW government Living away from home Allowance Assistance for Isolated Children Scheme (AIC).

See here for more information on Government schemes

• School Drive subsidy
• ABSTUDY allowance
• Public Education Foundation

Speak to Boarding School Executive staff for more information.

Boarding School Fees

Boarding School fees in NSW Government boarding schools is set and approved on an annual basis by the Minister of Education. Fees are invoiced and paid at the beginning of each term. Boarding fees are an enforceable debt and families are encouraged to speak with the Principal if their financial situation changes. Where a school receives allowances on behalf of students under the AIC or the Living away from home allowance, the amounts received are to be treated as fee collections. The allocation of these funds will take place by EDConnect. A security deposit is held at the start of a students enrolment and any portion not attributed to outstanding fees or repairs may be refunded when they sign out.

Boarding fees for 2026:

Year 7 - 11 - $14,450 per annum

• $3612.50 per term over 4 terms

Year 12 - $14,450.00 per annum

• $4816.68 per term over 3 terms

Room Custodianship

• Each student may bring 1 power board (with safety cutoff function) per room and that will be connected to the power point under your desk. This is designed to provide you with enough sockets to charge phones, devices etc.
• If you have a power point above your bed, you will have a light you can use as a night light, this will be supplied and your responsibility to look after. You may of course have your phone and device plugged into that socket during the day, while you are using it, but at night, we will be requiring that phones and devices are plugged into the power board on your desk. Why? Leaving a charging battery, which heats up, on bedding which is highly flammable is dangerous and a fire hazard.
• Plants – we will need to restrict each room (or person, in shared spaces) to two plants that have decorative pots that collect the water OR saucers underneath. There will be no hanging plants inside the rooms. Plants must be placed on a wipeable surface and not on the carpet.
• Decorating with posters, photos and other items fixed to walls – this will be possible BUT only on laminated surfaces such as the wardrobe doors, inside the shelf units, sides of the cupboard. We will not be permitting any ‘fixing’ on/into the gyprock or plaster boards. Each room has pinboards that you can also use – we will supply the thumb tacks you can use to put up your decorations or timetables, RPRT etc.
• You have been supplied with bins and lots of storage in the desks (1 drawer, cupboard, over/beside desk storage) and wardrobes (hanging and shelf space) along with beds (front storage and storage at the back).
• Consider for organisation the use of tubs or containers for underwear, socks etc. as there are no drawers for clothes.
• A reminder that you will need a dressing gown to go to and from showers clothed AND a caddy or shower bag to take your toiletries to and from.
• There is a handle on the wardrobe that may hold a towel BUT you may choose to get an over the door towel holder for better drying. Over-the-door hooks and holders will be permitted if the door functions correctly.
• A door stopper will be provided - we have doors open for BI.
• We will have a frame on the door that will have your name on a laminated sheet that will allow you to have space to leave messages using a whiteboard marker etc., gone to library for prep.
• No additional furniture can be brought to school.
• You will not be able to put up posters or other things on the front or back of the painted doors.
• You will be provided with keys that fit your locks on the cupboards and desk drawers, a key for your room and a fob that will provide you with access to the building. It will be important not to lose these as replacements will need to be paid for (replacing locks will be necessary for lost keys).

Screentime Policy

The full policy can be found here.

Workplace Health and Safety

Hurlstone is committed to protecting the health and safety of all students and staff and follows departmental WHS policy and protocols. The school management consults with staff and students in implementing safe practices and systems to ensure the health, safety and welfare of all students and employees.

Rec Select (Mandatory activity)

Rec Select is a compulsory one-hour activity session held Monday to Thursday, during which all students are required to leave the dormitories and participate in an organised activity. Students can choose from many activity options, designed to align with one of the HPG domains: Physical, Intellectual, Creative, and Social-Emotional.

This program encourages students to interact across year levels and genders, step away from their devices, and contribute to building a stronger sense of community among boarders.

With Block A now open for use, students are to report to one of the following designated areas for roll call:

• School Library – Intellectual
• Block A Verandah – Physical, Creative, and Social-Emotional

After roll call, students will be able to engage in the spaces or participate in activities that may be organised in other spaces, e.g. COLA or tennis courts. There is a grassed area adjacent to the duty room where some ball games can be played.

Prep (Homework‐Study Time)

Prep consists of homework, assignments and preparation for school the next day, revision of past work and study for exams. If all of these have been completed each night students are expected to read a novel for the remainder of the session. Prep takes place on Mondays – Thursdays, on school days and lasts for 90 minutes. Tutors and/or teaching staff are available to support students with homework and assessment preparation. There are also many the teaching staff that work as part of the duty team who can assist students with the work during prep and outside those times as appropriate. The library also has librarian staff rostered on from 3:30pm – 8pm that can assist students, especially in research and hand in task preparation. They are available during prep but can be accessed after school on Mondays – Thursdays. Students in Years 10-12 can access support from the tutors, librarians and staff allocated to junior prep by placing a note in their door and reporting to the library. They may also choose to work from the library by notifying the senior prep supervising duty team member in their block. It is important to note that mobile phones are to be ‘off and away’ during prep.

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