Illawarra Sports High School

Illawarra Sports High School is a designated specialist sports high school with a broadly based comprehensive curriculum from Years 7 to 12. The school offers a talented sports and development program to developing and elite athletes across the sporting areas of football, rugby league, rugby union, baseball, track and field, oztag, touch football, australian football league, surfing and netball and supports students from other sports without the coaching option e.g. tennis and swimming. The school draws the majority of its students from the Southern Wollongong area but has an increasing number of students from the larger Illawarra region who access its specialist sports programs. Illawarra Sports High School aims to give a central focus to respectful, responsible learning, promoting a school climate which fosters striving for excellence, high expectations of students and encourages students to attain their personal best in academic, sporting,leadership and cultural pursuits.Strategies to improve student literacy and numeracy skills include teacher professional learning on the use of individual student NAPLAN data to inform teaching. The school also has Year 7 and Year 8 enrichment classes which use a cross key learning area approach to the expicit teaching of literacy and numeracy skills,focusing on student growth and development and ALARM is used to explicitly teach extended response writing skills in the senior years. The school has forged close links with the University of Wollongong by engaging students in the In2Uni program and has introduced Targeted Academic Program classes in Year 7,8 and 9 and an Academic Challenge and Excellence Program for targetted Year 7 to Year 10 students. Illawarra Sports High provides a successful program for the Aboriginal students in literacy and numeracy, supported by the Aboriginal Education staff. Aboriginal students from Illawarra Sports High are included in the Murra Police and Emergency Services training program as preparation for after school careers. Illawarra Sports High has a strong VET program and substantial links with TAFE. Illawarra Sports High places a strong emphasis on student leadership and student voice and has a very active Student Representative Council and growing debating and public speaking program. Recent sporting achievements include consecutive year winners of the boys open NSW CHS touch football knockout (2012 and 2013) and semi finalists of GIO schoolboy rugby league cup (2013).