Caulfield Grammar School

Caulfield Grammar School is a coeducational independent school in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The school is a member of the Associated Public Schools of Victoria (APS), and is of Anglican denomination. It was founded in 1881 as a boys' school, and began admitting girls exactly one hundred years later.

Academics

Caulfield offers students a full range of subjects in its academic curriculum. All students study Mandarin Chinese ? the school's major Language Other Than English, taught because of China's developing importance in the Asia-Pacific region ? from primary school to Year 8, and German in Years 7 and 8, and may continue these languages as electives thereafter. The school awards scholarships for a range of fields, including academic excellence, theatre, music, art and sports.

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Middle School structure

Caulfield has recently reorganised the early years of high school, which had previously been overshadowed by the VCE (Years 10–12) and attempts to upgrade programs for senior students. Years 7 through 9 make up the middle school, and operate differently to the later VCE years. New programs at the middle school include a learning mentor program, introduced in 2004 at the Year 8 level, and expanded to Year 7 in 2005. This program provides every class with two teachers to around 30 students. Each class is assigned a learning mentor, who attends all of that group's lessons and assists each student with improving their own learning style. The mentor focuses on both academic and pastoral issues, while the designated subject teacher is responsible for preparing and teaching the set curriculum.

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Year 9 at Caulfield is seen as a year where students prepare to undertake the VCE (Years 10-12). Students do not have examinations, as would happen in any other senior school year at Caulfield, but rather focus on their classroom studies and the Learning Journeys program. Learning Journeys is a combination of various subjects previously studied in Year 9 - history, geography, religious education and personal development - with students working in groups of around 15 pupils to each teacher. Year 9 is also the year in which the internationalism trip to Nanjing takes place (see Nanjing Campus).

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The VCE

Caulfield Grammar School senior students study for the Victorian Certificate of Education (Caulfield does not offer the International Baccalaureate), achieved after graduating from Year 12. While the VCE is usually completed over two years, in 2003 Caulfield became one of the first schools in Melbourne to encourage Year 10 students to take as many as three Year 11 VCE Unit 1/2 courses. This program is seen as giving students a taste of the VCE a year earlier, thereby giving them a chance to prepare for what is to come. This also allows Year 11 students to undertake Year 12 Unit 3/4 studies, so that they effectively begin part of their Year 12 course a year earlier, maximising their ENTER scores by studying up to six subjects over this time. By beginning the VCE Year 12 program in Year 12, students may only study five subjects, which results in fewer subject scores influencing final ENTER results.

Related Topics:
Victorian Certificate of Education - International Baccalaureate - ENTER

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Year 11 students studying Mandarin may return to China on a two-week language-focused study tour at the Nanjing campus. For students studying German, there are places available for exchanges to Germany during the Christmas/summer holidays.

Related Topics:
Exchanges - Germany

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Caulfield achieves highly in statewide rankings of schools offering the VCE, and the annual Dux of the School often achieves an ENTER ranking of 99.95 (the highest possible ranking, placing the student in approximately the top 20 students in the state). Caulfield also has associations with Australian universities which have led to the introduction of awards for VCE students at the school. Each year, one Year 12 graduate from each senior campus is awarded a scholarship to attend Bond University, with their degree fully paid for. A Monash University bursary is also awarded to the top student in Year 11 at each campus to help pay for the cost of Year 12 studies.

Related Topics:
Dux - Bond University - Monash University

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"The virtual campus"

Unlike other Australian independent schools, Caulfield Grammar School has not followed the trend of making laptops compulsory for students. However, the school provides an online login system or Intranet for students and staff that is accessed via existing entry passwords and usernames. This capability is referred to as the School's sixth or "virtual" campus enables access to email and files from the school network over the Internet. The school established a computer network in 1997, with all students and staff having individual log in details, email accounts, and file space.{{ref|novell}}

Related Topics:
Laptop - Intranet

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