Learning Areas

The Arts allows students to explore and expand upon their critical and creative thinking skills. Students are given the opportunity to undertake a range of Arts based subjects through Year 7 and 8. This allows students to develop key knowledge relating to each subject, while also allowing students to make informed choices about their subject selection when choosing electives through Year 9 and 10.

At Cranbourne East Secondary College our students are given the opportunity to study subject areas such as: 

• Drama
• Music
• Media
• Dance
• Visual Arts
• Ceramics 
• Photography

Cranbourne East Secondary College is proud of its diverse community and the different cultures represented. Our college offers EAL to students in Years 7 to 12 who do not speak English as their first language and have been in Australia for less than 5 years.  However, eligibility for VCE is determined by the VCAA and requires students have studied English full-time for less than 7 years.

Generally, EAL classes are smaller than mainstream classes. They are available to those students who have been studying in English for seven years or less and operate at all levels from years 7-12, providing students with an excellent learning environment.

The English curriculum at CESC focuses on developing excellent reading and writing skills. We believe in children experiencing as many texts as possible, and support them to make links between what they read and what they can write.

Students are given the tools they need to access texts, with a clear emphasis on the comprehension strategies that are the step above being able to read the words in the texts aloud. The students are encouraged to read a ‘Just right book’, using the five word test – if there are more than five words on a page that are unknown or too difficult to decipher, the text is too hard. The students are then supported to further understand the text they’ve chosen using these comprehension strategies:

• Activating and connecting (linking our thinking, memories and knowledge to what we are reading)
• Determining importance (knowing what to look for in texts and how to use the structure to give us clues)
• Inferring (working out what the writer is hinting at in the text)
• Predicting (looking for evidence with regards to what will come next)
• Visualising (creating a mental picture of the text)
• Monitoring (checking ourselves for understanding, confusion, fluency in reading)
• Questioning (wondering what will happen next, where the text goes to from here, why things are done in the text the way they have been done)
• Summarising and synthesising (converting the text and ideas into our own words and linking them to knowledge we already have)

After this has become a part of the process students use to access texts, we introduce a deeper analysis of the ideas the writer shows, why the writer might be showing them, and how their ‘craft’ (writing techniques, style, structure and language) is used to put across the ideas.

This is then linked to how our students are taught writing. We have three basic writing types: Expository (instructional and informative), persuasive and creative. Students are taught to think of their writing in terms of SIX writing traits, which are:

• Ideas (what you’re going to say and show)
• Organisation (the form and expectations of that form)
• Word Choice (the types of words you use)
• Sentence fluency (the sentence types of which there are three)
• Voice (how authentic your ‘persona’ is)
• Conventions (grammar, punctuation, spelling – all the rules)

Physical Education classes provide students with the opportunity to develop their physical skills, physical fitness levels, effective communication and social health, through participation and exposure to a range of sports and leisure activities. Students are exposed to a range of activities that will encourage them to be active for life.

Our program emphasizes participation, the development of movement skills and game sense. Skills taught are multi-disciplinary, grouped into themes that can be used across multiple sports. Where possible we put students with others of like ability to maximise learning opportunities, student comfort and skill development.

We are proud to deliver an age appropriate Health curriculum from Years 7 to 10, focusing on harm minimisation and help seeking strategies. Our objective is to provide students with the information that they need to make informed choices about their lifestyle and risk taking activities. A skills based program is aimed at equipping students with the skills that are needed to cope with teenage life and their progression into adulthood.

Humanities is the study of human society and culture. Humanities is a compulsory subject from Year 7 to 10 that allows students to develop key knowledge relating to our four key domains (Civics and Citizenship, Economics and Business, History and Geography), while also developing the lifelong skills that are required to become active participants within a global world.