Teaching & Learning
Term 1 has been a strong and productive start to the year, with a number of highlights across the school. Our NAPLAN program ran smoothly, and we were particularly pleased to see our highest participation rates in years. This reflects the collective effort of students, staff and families in supporting the importance of these assessments, and ensuring students approached them with confidence and focus.
Our Year 12 students have also set an excellent tone for the year. Their attendance and study habits have been outstanding, demonstrating a strong commitment to their final year of schooling and future pathways. This positive start places them in a strong position as they move further into their VCE and VCE/VM studies.
Another highlight was the completion of Barista and Responsible Service of Alcohol training for our Year 12 cohort. Impressively, more than half of the students attended this training on their days off, demonstrating initiative and a willingness to build employability skills beyond the classroom. We extend our sincere thanks to Anwyen Stoakes for her incredible work coordinating these opportunities, and to Community Bank Maldon & District for their generous financial support in making this program possible.
Term 1 also saw the Year 9s begin their My Career Insights Profiles, an essential program that supports students with identifying their strengths, interests, and aptitudes to make informed decisions about senior school subjects, and future career pathways. The profiles will be vital in early Term 3 when students begin choosing their 2027 courses.
As we move into Term 2, our first teaching and learning goal is to continue developing a rigorous and engaging curriculum, with clear and purposeful pathways into VCE and VCE/VM. The leadership of the Teaching & Learning team is instrumental in shaping the learning experiences of all our students, ensuring lessons are challenging, engaging and connected to meaningful future opportunities.
We have also seen significant success in Term 1 with the reduction of computer use in the junior school. This shift has supported increased engagement, stronger classroom routines and improved learning focus. Building on this success, we will be exploring how these improvements can be extended into Year 8.
Attendance continues to be a key priority for our school. We want to see continued improvement, as we know more than ever that regular attendance, engaging curriculum, and involvement in cultural and extracurricular activities contribute to the most fulfilling and successful secondary school experience. Working together with families, we aim to ensure every student is present, engaged and supported to make the most of the opportunities available to them.
We look forward to another exciting and productive term ahead.
Nick Cowan
Assistant Principal - Teaching & Learning
Curriculum & Assessment
As a new member of the school community, it is clear to me that CSC will be the secondary school of choice in the coming years. With finely tuned work around curriculum planning and assessment, we will further harness the impressive cultural, intellectual and skills capital of the CSC community: students, teachers and, of course, our parents and carers. Term 1 started with our deep engagement in the recommendations from the review undertaken last year, particularly focusing on the alignment and consistency of practice. If you are a parent or carer, ask your student about the Learning Intention and Success Criteria for any of their subjects in a day. The ‘LISC’, as they’ve come to be known, are core to learning success and anchor students to the relevance of what is happening in the classroom in any given subject. The LISC are the first point of cognitive engagement for students, and, in their absence, classroom tasks can seem pointless which doesn’t bode well for any of us! Term 2 will bring more collaboration between teachers with common agreements about what excellence looks like in a subject and, more so, the strategies it takes to get students there. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to email me at anna.treasure@education.vic.gov.au.
Anna Treasure -
Leading Teacher - Curriculum & Assessment
Student Achievement
As Student Achievement Leader, support for NAPLAN coordination included adjustments and withdrawal processes to ensure equitable access, contributing to over 80% student participation. As Junior School Leader, the Year 7 transition program has been strengthened through clear routines, high expectations, and a focus on belonging and connection. This work has resulted in extremely positive feedback from parents and carers regarding the transition from Year 6 to Year 7, with student engagement data also reflecting a strong start for the cohort.
Alex Burgess-Norris
Leading Teacher - Student Achievement
Literacy
Over the past term, we made steady progress in strengthening our whole‑school approach to Literacy. We commenced our professional learning in 'The Writing Revolution' approach, beginning to build a shared understanding of the principles of explicit writing instruction and laying the groundwork for greater consistency and expectations across classrooms. Alongside this, our coordinated preparation for NAPLAN supported Years 7 and 9 students to develop a clearer grasp of the writing task assessment criteria and the features of effective written responses. By unpacking how NAPLAN assessors grade student writing and modelling high‑quality writing, we saw students develop a better understanding of the features of effective texts - both in writing assessment responses and in real life texts that we come across everyday. These early shifts indicate positive momentum in our Literacy improvement work and pave the way for further work in the coming term where we will continue the our professional learning in 'The Writing Revolution' and begin to embedding the apprach to teaching writing in curriculum planning.
Kristelle Sherwood
Learning Specialist - Literacy
Numeracy
This term has focused on building capacity in numeracy across the school through ongoing collaboration with Mathematics teachers. Support in the classroom has centred on sharing practical strategies, clarifying key concepts, and building confidence in delivering numeracy content. Initial work has also begun on exploring how The Writing Revolutionapproach can be meaningfully embedded within Mathematics, particularly to support students in communicating their reasoning and working more clearly.
The successful coordination and implementation of NAPLAN ensured all administrative processes, adjustments, and requirements were managed effectively, supporting strong student participation and engagement and enabling students to approach the assessment with greater confidence.
Sharon Rossiter
Learning Specialist - Numeracy