The competition at my school was evident more so in year 11. It was a whole new ball game, so to speak, and as such, the people who were the high achievers gave it there all. There were four people who got academic awards at the end of the year for topping 3+ subjects. However, the high achievers is a very small group compared to the grade. We had a grade of about 130-150 and of that, I'd say around 25 were your 85%+ kinda students. Out of those, there are two main super high achievers, but others who try just as hard.
You can see my strong points in my rankings below, but the other person who was the super high achiever did 4U english, all the history subjects and art. There is a big difference between us two.
In year 11, the competition was really close, but in year 12, everything slackened. In my mind, there were two or so high achievers who went way down in all their subjects :/ Still, the result of less competition in year 12 was that everyone shared everything. I know I tried to help as many people as I could, and after all internal assessments were done, I gave out essays and self written notes just to try and bring the cohort up and reduce stress/make study easier etc.
Lol, long comment :/ Still, I think it's an interesting subject.
All in all though, I feel the competition was worse in year 11, but generally, it was quite healthy.