Yes, that is true.
The school is allowed to tell you your current (or now "final") rankings in particular subjects, but they won't be able to tell you "who came 25th" for example.
Our school does the following:
Anyone who comes 1st in a subject gets known/publicised.
The rankings can then be:
* shown to the students, his own ranking (hiding everyone else's rank)
OR
the rankings can be read out in class, if the other students are okay with other kids knowing their rank.
With assessment marks, you will have to keep track of them yourself:
* Using the assessment calendar
* Using your school's own "assessment sheets" which detail the task, outcomes being tested, weighting of the task, marking guidelines/criteria, etc
Then you will keep track of your assessments as you get them back, convert the marks into weightings, keep those figures to say 6 decimal places (as my school does), or fractions, and then tally them up after the trials so you'll have a mark out of 50 or 100 (1U or 2U courses).
www.studentsonline.nsw.edu.au will be a useful website towards the end of the year, after the HSC. Bookmark it
You're not cheated in any way.
You're supposed to (well, at my school everyone does) keep a record of every task, their weightings, when something is due, how much they're worth (%'s) and then when we get them back, people keep track of who's where, who's currently 1st, who's beating who (talking to people, asking Q's with mates, etc) and then we have a good idea as to who will top a subject and our final assessment marks.
Fingers... cracking... slowing... down... *left hand fingers numb*