Teacher Mathematics

Description:

Cobar High School is a small comprehensive secondary school located in remote NSW, 700kms northwest of Sydney on the traditional lands of the Wongaibon people of the Ngiyampaa nation, with the nearest regional centre of Dubbo 300kms east. Cobar is a mining town with an approximate population of 4000 people. Students predominantly expect to gain highly paid occupations within the mining sector which does create unique challenges for the school, particularly in terms of engaging students in the notion of tertiary education.

The school has a student population of 220 students, of whom 26.8% identify as Aboriginal and 6.8% from a Non-English Speaking Background. Our support unit currently consists of 2 Multi-categorical classes to cater for our students with additional needs. The student population is transient with on average (past 7 years) only 38.4% of our Year 12 HSC graduates actually starting their secondary education at Cobar High School.

Cobar High School is predominantly staffed with inexperienced teachers, who work collaboratively, are enthusiastic and provide a range of extra-curricular activities for students. This, along with our extreme isolation, has resulted in the implementation of a Professional Learning Program that is designed to support the learning needs of our students as well as the developmental needs of our staff. This program, along with our scheduled lesson observations, are key to the school fulfilling its commitment of continually improving our effective classroom practices. This learning will ensure that both literacy and numeracy levels can be enhanced through improved data collection, analysis and use which underpins our belief in individualised and differentiated learning.

The school's staffing entitlement is 30 teaching and 9 non-teaching staff. From school funds we also employ a Head Teacher Teaching & Learning, 2 classroom teachers and 6 part-time School Learning Support Officers. These positions enable us to provide the valuable time required for teaching staff to fully engage with our Professional Learning and Lesson Observation programs as well as leadership in improving data collation and individual student differentiation.

Cobar High School has followed the principles of Positive Behaviour for Learning since its implementation began in 2012 and is proud of its reputation across NSW as a beacon school. We strongly and consistently promote an environment of respect, excellence and safety. Embedding this philosophy into our everyday processes will support all students to enhance their participation and engagement.