Southern Cross Distance Education Centre

The Southern Cross Distance Education Centre (Southern Cross DE) is a virtual school located in East Ballina, New South Wales, Australia.

Southern Cross DE, a part of the Southern Cross School, provides high school distance education for full-time, pathway and single course students, through over 65 courses including 8 languages. The centre states to provide flexible learning for quality individualised education.

Southern Cross Distance Education Centre employs over 90 professional teachers and staff and has enrolled more han 300 equivalent full time students in years 7-12. The centre caters for students who are travelling, isolated or cannot attend school for medical or other reasons. They are located across the far north coast and northern tablelands. Where students are not able to access a particular course at their local school due to it not being offered, a single subject enrolment is permitted. For a list of targeted students, see http://www.sthcrossc-d.schools.nsw.edu.au/full-time-enrolment.

The Southern Cross Distance Education Centre web site is at http://www.sthcrossc-d.schools.nsw.edu.au.

More Details

Students can access course materials via paper based booklets, CDs, DVDs, video and web technologies such as blogs, forums and wikis. They are also taught over the telephone, by email and on the Internet through the virtual learning environment Moodle. The centre also engages students through videoconferencing, Bridgit Data Collaboration, student online forums, mini-school days and teacher visits to schools and homes.

Southern Cross Distance Education Centre employs over 90 professional teachers and staff.

This centre is part of the Southern Cross School K-12, which has an enrolment of approximately 900 students from Kindergarten to Year 12, including support classes for students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities and multi non-categorical classification. By the end of 2011 teacher numbers had grown to 157 full time.

According to the annual school report of 2011, ‘Southern Cross Distance Education’ experienced a significant increase in enrolments (22%) in 2011 with some 450 EFT students enrolled and 90 staff employed. The greatest growth was in Years 11 and 12 with more students captured by the compulsory 17 year minimum leaving age. The school continued to improve:

• increasing the amount of online and blended learning
• catering for Single Course students through seminar days/ mini-schools at Southern Cross School K-12
• integrating Quality Teaching practices into interactive delivery

A financial summary of the School as well as the Distance Education Centre is available in the annual school report of 2011 (see References).

References

• Our school, Southern Cross School, http://www.sthcross-c.schools.nsw.edu.au/our-school, April 2012
• Southern Cross School K-12 Annual School Report, NSW Department of Education & Training, April 2012, http://www.sthcross-c.schools.nsw.edu.au/documents/13548344/13795229/Annual%20School%20Report%202011.pdf, PDF, April 2012
• 2010 Annual School Report Southern Cross School K-12 - NSW Public Schools – Leading the way, NSW Department of Education & Training, March 2011, http://www.sthcross-c.schools.nsw.edu.au/documents/13548344/13795229/ANNUAL%20SCHOOL%20REPORT%202010.pdf, PDF, April 2012

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