Last week, Zoe received a call from Singleton High School Principal Jo Scott and teacher Dayna Cowmeadow to congratulate her on the special achievement.

"I got an email out of the blue last week requesting a virtual meeting between myself, Miss Cowmeadow and Ms Scott, which you can understand I was apprehensive about," said the 18 year old.

"But the good news was quickly conveyed, and the meeting turned quite sappy after that."

The Minister's Award for Excellence in Student Achievement is one category of a series of highly accredited awards given out to students, teachers and volunteers across NSW each year. This year there was roughly 30 recipients of the award.

"For me, this award feels like the culmination of six years of high school, and comes a bright spot in this current lockdown," Ms Tudor said.

As well as focusing on her own studies ahead of the ever-daunting Higher School Certificate exams, Ms Tudor has also been responsible for leading not only her own cohort, but the entire high school through the past 12 months as one of the members of the school leadership team.

"It has certainly been an exercise in flexibility and disappointment. I know I can speak for the rest of the leadership team when I say that we had many plans for this year that never came to fruition," she told The Singleton Argus.

"Now that we are learning from home, it is a case of leading by example and keeping morale up where we can, but it is a trying time for all of us, and each is coping in their own individual way."

The NSW Minister for Education Sarah Mitchell cited Ms Tudor 's award credit to her for her exemplification of the values and qualities that underpins public education.

"Zoe is the product of six years of consistent diligence, sustained effort and commitment to herself and her school community," she said.

"Zoe personifies the values of respect, cooperation, responsibility, participation, care, fairness and most important integrity in all that she does."

Ms Tudor's HSC subject range include English Advanced, Maths Advanced and Extension One, Chemistry and Science Extension and has also already completed Biology and Japanese Continuers last year as accelerated subjects.

"I plan to go to Newcastle uni next year to study a bachelor of Biotechnology, which is an area of science I have been interested in for a while now," she said.

"Ideally, after that I would love to get a full-ride scholarship to study post graduate abroad, but my final goal has always been medical research and innovation."

She said she would like to thank her teachers for their kind words in the nomination for the award and her family, friends and school cohort for their ongoing support throughout her education.