I venture out to the Western suburbs of Sydney regularly. In terms of study ethic , I believe they are just as good as the Northern suburbs and Eastern suburb students. Big difference I can see is in resources, mental thinking and networks. I tutor a student way out in Ropes Crossing and he only has 1 borrowed General Maths textbook in preparation for his HSC exams. (borrowed from his school library) Personally, think I have spent around $500-$600 on General Maths textbooks alone. (I don't want to sound snobbish). I think in schools is alot of students have a belief 'my schools not good enough', ' living in the city is better'.......which is the attitude shown by that same student of mine. I also kind of admit , I was in that boat before, especially when I got to university, I just had this inferiority complex that the 'richer private school kids ' were better than me academically. If I can give advice to any student, is to study as hard as you can, get the right people behind you, and always believe you can achieve success, no matter who writes you off.
I think in a HSC year , personally think you have to have at least a couple of resources to go from. In my short time, I have managed to get him up from 23.75% (from half yearlies) to the highest performer in General maths in his class. (after trials) . I think you can shop around especially on gumtree or 2nd hand places for more books to help you. (you can get books for a bargain price)
I also have been to the UWS (or Western Sydney campuses in Parramatta, Kingswood and Bankstown) and no disrespect but the libraries are smaller and have a smaller collection of books. Also in my time, I do notice the students to be slightly rowdier, especially the ones in Bankstown, who to me came to uni to muck around.