Introducing Applecross Senior High School

About Applecross

Applecross Senior High School was established in 1958. It is located in the pleasant near-riverside suburb of Ardross. The School has established and sustained a reputation for high academic, sporting and cultural achievements, winning many academic exhibitions, awards and competitions, and is often placed among the highest performing public high schools.

Applecross, Ardross, Booragoon, Brentwood, Mount Pleasant and Winthrop are the contributory primary schools for Applecross Senior High School.

About 70% of our students seek with success to enter a university, and others achieve entry to Technical and Further Education (TAFE) or go directly to employment. Those achieving university entrance frequently do so with higher than the average Australian Tertiary Entry Rank (ATAR), and generally continue to successful completion of their qualifications.

The School celebrates its cultural diversity, with approximately 50% of its student population from non-European backgrounds.

Well known alumni include media personalities Deborah Kennedy and Mara Pritchard, Maritime Museum Director Graeme Henderson, AFL footballer Darren Bennett, and political cartoonist Dean Alston.

Parent involvement is valued and encouraged through the Parents and Citizens Association, canteen, school committees, and the School Board. Active parent groups support the programs in Art, Music and Tennis.

The School has several unique features:

  • a long history of academic excellence
  • more than 40 years of the highly successful GATE: Visual Arts program
  • well qualified, stable staff with a wealth of experience and long-term commitment to the School
  • strong relationships with local employers

Features of the Curriculum

Applecross focuses strongly on:

  • the individual needs of each student
  • students, parents and teachers working together to support the teaching-learning experience
  • programs that reflect potential areas for future education, training and employment
  • basic skills which are vital to every student’s future: literacy, numeracy, information technology skills, critical and creative thinking, ethical behaviour personal and social capability and intercultural understandings.

A full range of subjects covering the eight Learning Areas is offered:

  • The Arts
  • English
  • Health and Physical Education
  • Languages
  • Mathematics
  • Science
  • Society and Environment
  • Technology and Enterprise

Special programs have been developed to cater for the needs of our students. These programs include:

  • Academic Extension Program
  • English as a Second Language
  • GATE: Visual Arts
  • Instrumental Music
  • Specialist Tennis
  • Literature

Applecross students:

  • learn in different and dynamic ways
  • use the power of information technology to explore and learn
  • participate in real and engaging activities

Curriculum

Applecross Senior High School offers a curriculum that reflects, at the broad national level, the National Goals for Schooling and meets the requirements of the Western Australian Curriculum Framework. The Australian Curriculum is being implemented as it becomes available. For 2015, English, Mathematics, Science and Society & Environment will use the Australian Curriculum in Years 7 to 10.

National Goals for Schooling

The achievement of these goals will assist young people to contribute to Australia’s social, cultural and economic development in local and global contexts. Their achievement will also assist young people to develop a disposition towards learning throughout their lives so that they can exercise their rights and responsibilities as Australian citizens.

The Australian Curriculum

The development of the Australian Curriculum is guided by the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, adopted by the council of state and territory education ministers in December 2008. The Melbourne Declaration emphasises the importance of knowledge, understanding, skills and values and a range of cross-disciplinary skills that will support all young Australians to become successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens.

These goals and priorities are reflected in the three dimensions of the Australian Curriculum, learning areas, general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities, that together provide the basis for a curriculum designed to support 21st century learning.

The Australian Curriculum describes a learning entitlement for each Australian student that provides a foundation for successful, lifelong learning and participation in the Australian community. It acknowledges that the needs and interests of students will vary, and that schools and teachers will plan from the curriculum in ways that respond to those needs and interests. The Australian Curriculum acknowledges the changing ways in which young people will learn and the challenges that will continue to shape their learning in the future.

The Australian Curriculum has been published for English, Mathematics, Science and History for Foundation to Year 10. Curriculum for these years is being developed for Geography, Languages, The Arts, Health and Physical Education, Technologies, Economics and Business and Civics and Citizenship and will be published progressively.

The Australian Curriculum sets out what all young people should be taught through the specification of curriculum content and the learning expected at points in their schooling through the provision of achievement standards.

The curriculum includes:

  • a rationale and a set of aims
  • an overview of how the learning area is organised
  • year level descriptions
  • content descriptions (knowledge, understanding and skills) specifying what teachers are expected to teach
  • content elaborations to provide additional clarity by way of illustrative examples only
  • achievement standards that describe the quality of learning (the depth of understanding and sophistication of skill) expected of students at points in their schooling
  • annotated student work samples that illustrate the achievement standard at each year level. As the Australian Curriculum is implemented, the available work samples will be enhanced in both volume and range of forms
  • a glossary to support consistent understanding of terms used

Increasingly, in a world where knowledge itself is constantly growing and evolving, students need to develop a set of knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions,or general capabilities that apply across learning area content and equip them to be lifelong learners able to operate with confidence in a complex, information-rich, globalised world.

The Australian Curriculum includes a focus on seven general capabilities: Literacy, Numeracy, Information and communication technology (ICT) capability, Critical and creative thinking, Ethical understanding, Personal and social capability and Intercultural understanding. Continua of learning have been developed for each, to describe the relevant knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions at particular points of schooling.

The Australian Curriculum also pays attention to three cross-curriculum priorities: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia and Sustainability. These have been embedded where relevant and appropriate in each learning area and can be viewed explicitly in the curriculum online.

The Australian Curriculum is published online to provide maximum flexibility in how the curriculum can be accessed and organised. For example, the curriculum may be viewed by learning area, by multiple year levels, or by year level across learning areas, and may be downloaded and printed in those views.

The Australian Curriculum may be accessed at

Curriculum Framework

The Framework sets out learning outcomes. These describe what all students should know, understand, value and be able to do as a result of their learning in schools.

The Overarching Learning Outcomes apply across all Learning Areas. They are the outcomes that all students need to become lifelong learners and achieve their potential in their personal and working lives:

  • Students use language to understand, develop and communicate ideas and information, and interact with others.
  • Students select, integrate and apply numerical and spatial concepts and techniques.
  • Students recognise when and what information is needed, locate and obtain it from a range of sources and evaluate, use and share it with others.
  • Students select, use and adapt technologies.
  • Students describe and reason about patterns, structures and relationships in order to understand, interpret, justify and make predictions.
  • Students visualise consequences, think laterally, recognise opportunity and potential and are prepared to test options.
  • Students understand and appreciate the physical, biological and technological world and have the knowledge and skills to make decisions in relation to it.
  • Students understand their cultural, geographic and historical contexts and have the knowledge, skills and values necessary for active participation in life in Australia.
  • Students interact with people and cultures other than their own and are equipped to contribute to the global community.
  • Students participate in creative activity of their own and understand and engage with the artistic, cultural and intellectual work of others.
  • Students value and implement practices that promote personal growth and well being.
  • Students are self-motivated and confident in their approach to learning and are able to work individually and collaboratively.
  • Students recognise that everyone has the right to feel valued and be safe, and, in this regard, understand their rights and obligations and behave responsibly.

Special Programs

Applecross Senior High School has a long history of excellence in education. Special programs have been developed for students to cater for academic abilities and interests.

Academic Extension Program

The needs of academically talented students are specifically catered for through the Academic Extension Program, which operates in English, Mathematics, Science, and Society Environment in Years 7 to 10.

The Academic Extension Program provides special discrete classes for students who have been selected on the basis of their performance in these subjects. Courses studied are, in many cases, the same as those provided for the most academically able students in mainstream classes, but the Academic Extension students are often required to complete extra courses of study and are offered a variety of learning experiences designed both to develop their skills and competencies while providing challenging and motivating learning experiences.

Within the four Learning Areas that operate Academic Extension classes, there is some variation in the way that students are initially selected. The results of the Applecross Senior High School Academic Extension Tests, together with information from Year 6 & 7 teachers is used when organising Year 7 & 8 students into appropriate pathways for the beginning of the school year.

Competition for places in the Academic Extension Program is always very keen. Whilst academic performance is an important indicator, consideration is also given to teacher recommendation and a demonstrated commitment and motivation to achieve by the student. Generally we review the placement of students in the Academic Extension Program on a semester basis, with highly performing students having the opportunity to move from a general class to an academic extension class. Similarly, students who are not performing at the required level will move to a general class. Our aim is to meet the needs of all students. Class performance is reviewed both throughout and at the end of the year for Year 9 and Year 10 placements.

Students commonly have individual areas of talent and the Academic Extension Program has been designed to cater for this and allow maximum flexibility for students. Selection for each of the Academic Extension classes in a year group is made on an independent basis so that it is possible for some students to participate in just one Academic Extension class while others may be offered places in up to four classes. This has resulted in a wide participation rate amongst students so that typically we have over 100 students placed in at least one Academic Extension class for each of the year groups.

Community Service Program

The Community Service Program (CSP) was introduced into all secondary schools in 2007. Students are encouraged to complete a minimum of twenty hours of community service before the completion of Year 12, commencing in Year 10.

The 20 hours service is recorded on the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) for students completing Year 12.

A log book for recording service hours has been developed and produced by the Curriculum Council of Western Australia. These books will be distributed to all interested Year 10 students at Applecross at the beginning of the school year.

The CSP aims to:

  • develop a culture and ethos of service in secondary schools;
  • provide opportunities for students to exercise responsibility, develop leadership skills and learn through helping others; and
  • recognise the contribution of students who already participate in service activities in their own time.

Students will be able to count many different types of activities as community service.

Community service activities might be:

  • a series of short activities or a single activity or project that is done over a term or semester.
  • direct (involving personal contact with the person being served – e.g. visiting the elderly) or indirect (e.g. food drives, fundraising, environmental clean-ups).

More detailed information will be provided to students at the commencement of Year 10.

English as a Second Language

Students of Non-English Speaking Backgrounds who have been in Australia for not more than three years and who are experiencing difficulties with their English should enrol in these courses.

Some students who have been here longer may also be accepted into the course if numbers permit.

Gifted and Talented Education: Visual Arts

The Department of Education offers courses for specially selected students with a particular interest in and talent for art. Selection is based on the result of a series of practical activities and is influenced by a folio of work which demonstrates the student's own artwork. Entry to the program takes place for Year 7 students after interviews and testing have been conducted in Year 6. The Department of Education also provides opportunities for students in Years 8, 9, 10 and 11 (for the following year) to apply for limited places in GATE programs that may become available.

Each year this school receives well over 100 applications for the 30 plus positions available in Year 7. Students enrolled at Year 7 level continue studies through to Year 12.

Students selected for the program attend all normal classes at the school. Artists are employed to provide additional classes in a variety of studio areas on Saturday mornings.

The course is challenging, exciting, time consuming and demanding. A student's full commitment is necessary; however, the long term benefits and rewards are most satisfying. The majority, if not all of the art graduates, gain entry into tertiary courses in art. These are the artists, architects, designers and crafts people of the future.

This program attracts higher compulsory charges.

Instrumental Music

Those students learning an instrument through the Department of Education will be taking Instrumental and Ensemble courses in conjunction with Class Music. Students do not choose Instrumental and Ensemble units directly as they are organised via the Class Music units.

Some students in Year 7 & 8 may be allowed to begin lessons on brass, woodwind, percussion, and voice, if the Department of Education gives its approval.

This program attracts higher compulsory charges.

Literature Program

The Literature program at Applecross Senior High School is a new and innovative initiative designed to promote language skills and creativity through reading and writing Literature for students in Years 8-10. Applecross Senior High School has a strong history of excellent performance in Western Australian Certificate of Education courses with a Subject Exhibition in English (2000) and Literature (2006), and students scoring 100% in the Literature examination in 2004, 2007 and 2009.

About the program

  • An exciting opportunity for lower school students to engage in the study of literary texts
  • Headed by Ms Lake - NEITA Australian Teacher of the Year 2007 and Churchill Fellow in 2010
  • Continuing the written creative tradition established by former students. Five time winners of The Eric Carlin Award - West Australian Young Writers’ Competition
  • An inspirational learning environment fostering pleasure and diversity in reading as well as creativity

Our Literature program will focus on

  • Studying a wide background of literary texts to form the basis of future investigation and understanding
  • Encouraging diverse reading strategies of different literary texts
  • Honing creative and essay writing skills which reflect those texts studied
  • Poetic and prose skills
  • Targeting both the Literacy and Literature strands of the Australian Curriculum

Students interested in this program should be able to demonstrate their engagement with reading and writing through:

  • Ability to verbalise their ideas and feelings through discussion and debate
  • Ability to demonstrate a genuine engagement with literary texts
  • Ability to express their ideas and creativity through the various elements of the written word
  • Ability to think critically, make decisions and embrace ideas in the written context
  • Ability to interact with others in a positive manner

Specialist Tennis

Specialist Tennis is offered to students at Applecross Senior High School in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10, and through Physical Education Studies (Tennis) in Year 11 and 12. In lower school it operates within the elective subject program. Students participating in Specialist Tennis will find that their choice of elective subjects is restricted.

Selected students will complete a course that involves four hours per week of both practical on-court, and theoretical instruction in all aspects of the game.

The Specialist Tennis program offers tournament participation, school representation, interstate travel and competition, lectures and instruction from former touring professionals and accreditation in coaching, umpiring and sports medicine. The program has been formally endorsed by the Department of Education and Tennis West and caters for tournament players.