Sydney Secondary College Leichhardt Campus
Location: Sydney Secondary College is a multi-campus school in the inner city,
It comprising two Years 7-10 campuses (Leichhardt and Balmain) and one Year 11-12 campus (Blackwattle Bay). The Leichhardt Campus, which has 900 students, is a socioeconomically and culturally diverse middle school. Around 3 % of students are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.
How [insert school name] has used Gonski funding
Sydney Secondary College used their $400000 of Gonski funding to employ additional teaching and support staff to assist at-risk Aboriginal and socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
The school employed a Norta Norta literacy teacher for two days a week and a Norta Norta numeracy teacher one day a week to provide more support for Aboriginal students.
A further two full-time learning support officers were employed to work with struggling students, supplemented by external mentors.
How Gonski funding has made a difference for students
Gonski funding has had a profound effect on the education of a small group of Aboriginal students and other socio-economically disadvantaged students. Of the ten students considered to be most at risk of low achievement in 2015, all have improved, with eight no longer considered to be in the highest category for poor performance. Two Year 9 and two Year 8 Aboriginal students, who received mentoring for literacy and numeracy from the Norta Norta teachers, improved their overall grade average from a ‘sound’ to a ‘high’. Another Aboriginal student improved his grade from a ‘limited’ to a ‘sound’ over the same six month period. A number of other students from disadvantaged backgrounds who received additional learning support raised their grade average by one place in many cases over that same six-month period.
What the continuation of Gonski funding means to Sydney SC Leichhardt.
Principal Melinda Bright says Gonski funding has been proven to help to close the gap in educational outcomes for the school’s Aboriginal students and those from a disadvantaged background.
The discontinuation of Gonski funding would jeopardise SSC Leichhardt Campus’s ability to maintain the successful interventions it has made in supporting students at risk of not fulfilling their potential, she says.
