What is ATAR Support?
ATAR Support is an online education resource that provides ATAR revision and examination preparation courses for students that are currently enrolled in ATAR courses in Australian schools. These online resources have been compiled by subject matters experts for the purpose of recorded tuition so that students can watch on-demand, pause and rewind these recordings to get the best out of their examination and subject revision.
These online courses have over 10 hours of content per course, which are supplemented with student booklets. These booklets are designed to follow each course and provide specific information, diagrams, and exam related questions to assist students in the preparation for their ATAR exams. These videos offer students the opportunity to add to their educational experience at their own school, with another voice on how to best prepare and study for the most important examination period in their high school lives.
Who is ATAR Support?
ATAR Support was designed and created by two Perth based teachers who wanted to design an innovative learning tool to help support students with online revision and practice materials for their ATAR exams in October and November each year in Western Australia.
Carl Owen and Andrew Thomas have worked in Western Australian schools for the last 15 years in both the Government, Independent and most recently in the Catholic Education sector. Their first website, OLNA Support, was created back in 2015 to assist students with preparation for the Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (OLNA). It was with this creation, that another idea was born, and that was to record subject experts teaching revision material for the ATAR exams. This would allow all students from around Australia to have access to revision materials for these exams.
What is an ATAR?
The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) is the primary criterion/benchmark for entry into undergraduate courses in universities in Australia. It is a number between 0.00 and 99.95 which shows student’s relative position compared to all other students in the age group of 16 to 20 years and not just for the specific cohort or year of passing, an ATAR of 80.00 means that a student belongs to the top 20 percent of students within their current age group of 16 to 20 years.
The ATAR is used by: the Universities Admissions Centre (UAC) in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory; the South Australian Tertiary Admissions Centre (SATAC) in South Australia and the Northern Territory; Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC) in Victoria; and Tertiary Institutions Service Centre (TISC) in Western Australia. The Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre (QTAC) in 2020. These bodies then allocate positions for the tertiary institutions in their relevant states. All Australian universities, except the private universities use the ATAR for admission, entry to private universities is via direct application (but may use your ATAR score in that direct application).
For Western Australian students the TISC website is the best source of information in explaining what ATAR is and how to calculate it. Their website is: TISC
Disclaimer: We are no way affiliated or connected with any ATAR institution or the School Curriculum and Standards Authority (in Western Australia), if you have any questions about how an ATAR is calculated for admission into University please click on the links above to the appropriate ATAR organisation based on the State you live in.