School context
Fairvale High School is a vibrant and diverse comprehensive public secondary school. It is located near the suburbs of Fairfield and Canley Vale, 34kms southwest of Sydney’s CBD and situated on Darug Country. Its large student population of 1,300 enrolments in Years 7 to 12 is very multicultural, including Vietnamese, Arabic, Assyrian and Pacific Islander cultural groups among many.
Over 90% of students identify as having a language background other than English, and 20% of students are identified as coming from a refugee background. The local community has lower levels of socio-educational advantage than typical for Sydney, with 66% of students identified as in the lowest quartile of advantage. Additionally, the community at Fairvale High School experienced significant challenges through the COVID-19 pandemic. The Fairfield area was one of the first to be identified as a Local Government Area of Concern in 2021, meaning their students experienced some of the most significant disruptions to learning faced by any students in NSW and Australia through that challenging time.
Challenge
As a school with a diverse student community, there is a significant amount of differentiated support needed to meet the diverse needs and backgrounds of students, which creates some challenges for teaching in a secondary context. In 2013, the school participated in a pilot program of what became the NSW Department of Education’s Tell Them From Me student voice and well-being survey. The school’s analysis of this survey data suggested there was a need to improve the proportion of students who had a positive sense of belonging at school. Students also reported having a sense of low expectations for learning and success. At the same time, analysis of student performance data for NAPLAN and the HSC helped the school’s leadership to identify opportunities for learning growth, particularly in literacy.
Actions taken
School planning and strategic focus
Fairvale High School has developed and implemented three school plans that maintain a consistent, strategic focus on school improvement. Each of these plans has built on the last, maintaining a strong focus on excellence in teaching and learning along with support for positive student well-being. Fairvale High School has made use of additional equity funding sources to employ additional teaching and leadership staff to implement key initiatives as part of their school plans. Once initiatives were successfully embedded, the school’s planning shifted to focus on the next challenge, such as initiatives to improve formative assessment practices and feedback to students.
A consistent, school-wide focus on classroom teaching and learning
Fairvale High School has embraced a whole-school approach to teaching and learning, prioritising classroom practice as a core part of the staff culture. The school has worked hard over the last decade to implement and improve the effectiveness of explicit teaching across all subjects, faculties and classrooms. In addition, Fairvale High School has implemented explicit literacy periods of teaching for all students in Years 7 to 9, with two lessons per week for each student. For numeracy, teachers of Year 7-10 Mathematics are supported by the Head Teacher to embed data-driven numeracy lessons.
Student engagement to support positive well-being
The school implemented programs to strategically support student wellbeing, with a particular focus on fostering a sense of belonging in the school. Fairvale High School continued to make effective use of student wellbeing data using the Department’s Tell Them From Me survey. The school has used its equity funding for additional staff to lead the Year 6 to 7 transition program. This has helped incoming students to feel more familiar with the school and foster a sense of connectedness from Year 7 onwards to achieve a stronger sense of belonging. The school also has a refugee support program with a refugee support Coordinator and a refugee support Leader to facilitate programs to support students and their families.
Outcomes
Fairvale High School has managed to not just improve student outcomes over the course of more than a decade but also successfully sustain this high performance. It has maintained its Year 7-to-9 and 9-to-12 Value-Added scores in the Excelling range since 2019. This puts Fairvale High School among the top 20 high schools in NSW for the additional learning growth its students achieve. The school’s student survey data is consistently positive, with stronger levels than statistically similar schools. In the 2024 survey, 91% of students felt a positive sense of high expectations, with very high aspirations to attain Year 12 and progress to post-school education. In addition, the school had strong growth in student attendance rates in 2023 and 2024, demonstrating support for student resilience and recovery after the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
