Chaffey Secondary College is a Year 7 to 10 co-educational College with a 2023 enrolment of 700 students, located in the centre of the city of Mildura. The majority of students transition to Mildura Senior College for Years 11 & 12. Students are drawn mainly from four local government primary schools in Mildura with other enrolments coming from other government and non-government schools in Victoria and southern NSW.
The college's SFO of 0.635 is indicative of the student cultural diversity which includes Indigenous and students from Tonga, Samoa and Turkey, along with an increasing population of new arrivals from Afghanistan, Iran and other Middle Eastern states.
Our college has redefined itself around our vision of High Expectations for all with a focus on:
Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Building Authentic and Respectful Relationships
Creating Effective Community Partnerships
This is driven by our purpose statement which is:
To grow all of our young people academically, socially and emotionally, to be proud of themselves, the school, and the community in a safe and inclusive environment.
We will achieve this through our values of
Respect, Inclusion, Pride and Responsibility (RIPR).
These are the values that we live by and will operate on each day. They will be the focus of how we run our school, classrooms, outdoor areas and community interactions. They underpin our rewards systems and our behaviour modification systems.
Chaffey Secondary College is on a continuous improvement journey with a key focus on student growth in learning and establishing school wide positive behaviour systems. We are a visible learning school embracing the work of John Hattie which is informed by data to construct our instructional model.
We are a visible wellbeing school embedding the SEARCH framework by Professor Lea Waters as our language of wellbeing.
The College's curriculum and its supports are designed to meet the specific developmental needs of students as they progress from a core Middle Years program to the Later Years program where there an increasing capacity to select electives and pathway programs, including VET, VCAL and VCE Unit 1 & 2 for some subjects. Students are encouraged to achieve their personal best in their studies, and are assessed against the Victorian Curriculum. In addition, the College provides a range of extra-curricular and after school programs to support, challenge and enrich students.
Chaffey Secondary College has a SEAL (Select Entry Accelerated Learning) program and is a member of the SEAL Academy as one of only 40 accredited schools in Victoria and is the exclusive provider of the program in Sunraysia.
The college provides a Flexible Learning Options (FLO) program to support students at risk. This program enables students to undertake an individualised program tailored to their educational, wellbeing and mental-health needs.
The Clontarf Football Academy was introduced in 2010 with mentoring and an engagement activity that supports Koorie boys has been highly successful. A similar program has been established for Koorie girls, Stars Academy. Both programs aim to develop aspirations for opportunities beyond school.