The girl who grew up on a farm at Conjola, flew home from Europe only two days before taking her Higher School Certificate exams, and she said she did not regret choosing work over study.

Kendra attended St John the Evangelist Catholic High School in Nowra until June this year and spent the next six months filming a children’s television series in Germany.

Being out of the country meant she had to complete her HSC studies via distance education, but was able to take the test with her classmates at St John’s.

The daughter of Graham and Debra Appleton, Kendra said she was pleased with her ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) of 72.45 and hoped it was enough to get her into a university arts degree.

“If I had’ve stayed home I think I would have gone a lot better in the HSC,” she said.

“But the acting experience was something I was never going to pass up.”

Kendra said she fought jet lag to complete her first few exams and she felt she performed well considering the only study time she had in Germany was on weekends and on set breaks.

“It was pretty turbulent and a lot of hard work,” she said, “but very rewarding”.

She worked up to 14 hours a day on the 26-episode series, filmed at a castle, that will be aired in Australia next year.

While she said she did not regret the decision to turn her HSC year upside-down, she said she was disappointed she had to drop drama, her favourite and strongest subject, because she could not be in the country for the group performances.

However, with previous small guest parts in shows such as Rescue Special Ops and Me and My Monsters, and now a major television role where she had do adopt a German accent, Kendra aims to continue her acting career.

With the HSC done and dusted, she said the next few weeks would be spent “catching up with friends, horse riding, reading and doing nothing”.