‘That number ain’t you bby’: Australian celebrities and lecturers say Atar results don’t define future

Australian actor Christie Whelan Browne said she received a ‘shit’ Atar. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Writer, broadcaster, musician and creative writing teacher Sian Prior has come a long way from her high school exams.

“Forty years ago my HSC clarinet exam nearly ended in tears when one of the pieces I’d planned to play wasn’t on the syllabus,” she says.