Quality Teaching at Cessnock High School
Building school capacity through partnership
In 2020, new Cessnock High School Principal, Peter Riley partnered with the University of Newcastle’s Teachers and Teaching Research Centre to develop and deliver an evidence-based, comprehensive, whole-school improvement plan over four-years. This co-designed initiative centred on building capacity for quality teaching using the Quality Teaching Model as the school’s instructional core, embedded through Quality Teaching Rounds and later expanded to include assessment, programming, and trauma-informed practices.
As a result of this partnership, one of the most disadvantaged schools in regional NSW has transformed its teaching practice, reinvigorated culture, deepened community connections, and delivered some of the most improved academic results in Australia.
In the last three years, Cessnock High School has achieved
Making a difference at Cessnock High School
In 2023, Cessnock High School ranked first in the Hunter region and 11th overall in the state for their growth in NAPLAN results from Year 7 to 9. Cessnock students’ HSC results also improved by more than 50 per cent in 2022, a result that was replicated in 2023.
Student attendance and engagement grew by seven per cent – triple the average across the state. Positive behaviour referrals were up 130 per cent in 2023 while negative behaviours significantly decreased.
Dr Drew Miller, said a whole-school approach to QTR enables schools to keep a clear focus on teaching and learning despite the other matters that demand their attention.
An award-winning partnership
Conor Duffy, ABC | 14 April 2024
Cessnock High today is a school transformed under the leadership of principal Peter Riley.
When he took over five years ago, he knew there was a lot of work to do.
He’s reluctant to criticise the local working class community which borders the mines and wines in the Hunter Valley, about 250 kilometres north of Sydney.
“It’s a tough community I suppose,” he said.
“Over 70 per cent of our community are in the bottom quartile for socio-economic advantage and with that comes all the issues associated with that.
“We had more than our fair share of negative behaviours that were occurring at the school on a consistent basis. And again that could be an excuse not to learn.”
ABC | 14 April 2024
ABC | 14 April 2024
ABC | 15 April 2024
NBN News | 15 April 2024
Alanna Tomazin, Newcastle Herald | 15 April 2024
High School are the blueprint for a new quality teaching model and now 25 other state schools are set to benefit from their findings.
The University of Newcastle has announced $4.3 million in grant funding to NSW government schools in communities with the least access to socio-educational advantage through its new Thriving Schools project.
The project was formed after a four-year partnership between UON and Cessnock High, when school principal Peter Riley saw the opportunity.
“I reached out to the university [because] I was at a school previously where I’d seen quality teaching impact. It was a higher socio-educational school so I wanted to challenge our school. Will quality teaching work?,” he said.
Drew Miller, ARRE Edu Research Matters | 15 April 2024
When Cessnock High School approached us in 2020 about a long-term partnership focused on developing a clear, coherent culture of teaching and learning, we were two years into an ambitious five year program of research on the impact of Quality Teaching Rounds on student and teacher outcomes.
We had evidence from the first in a series of randomised controlled trials that teacher participation in QTR could improve students achievement, teaching quality and teacher morale.
The challenge was to translate this large-scale research involving hundreds of teachers across hundreds of schools into a partnership model that deeply embedded a culture of quality teaching in one highly disadvantaged school.
Our role at Cessnock High was supporting their teachers to do the challenging work of reflecting on and developing their practice. We did this by centring the partnership on the Quality Teaching Model and engaging all teachers in Quality Teaching Rounds.
Tom Carey, UON Newsroom | 15 April 2024
Twenty-five NSW government schools in communities with the least access to socio-educational advantage will benefit from a new research partnership project with the University of Newcastle’s Teachers and Teaching Research Centre (TTRC).
University-school partnership project seeks to lift student outcomes
Over the next three years, the schools will form research partnerships centred on the award-winning Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR) program. The project aims to enhance teaching quality, support teacher wellbeing, and build positive school cultures, ultimately to lift student academic outcomes and improve equity.
Led by Dr Drew Miller, the new $4.3M project, Thriving Schools, is funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF) with support from the NSW Department of Education.
This investment comes on the back of the five-year collaboration between the University, PRF and NSW Department of Education on the Building Capacity for Quality Teaching in Australian Schools (2019-2023) project. This project included the largest randomised controlled trial in Australian education research history which examined the impact of QTR on student achievement.
The Educator | 17 April 2024
A new research partnership aims to improve teaching quality, support teacher wellbeing, and build positive school cultures, ultimately to lift student achievement and improve equity.
The three-year ‘Thriving Schools’ project, which brings together the University of Newcastle’s Teachers and Teaching Research Centre (TTRC) with 24 public schools across NSW, is centred on the award-winning Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR) program.
Madelaine Love, Hippocampus | 18 April 2024
A new way of teaching has helped turn the tables at Cessnock High School. The results speak for themselves.
“I remember when I first started, it was not a very welcoming environment. And that’s not a comment on the teachers. But it was very much ‘teachers versus students’,” says Kelsey.
But something remarkable has happened at the school, which experiences one of the highest levels of socio-economic disadvantage in the region.
Now, students stop to chat with their teachers about plans for the weekend. The school uniform, once unenthusiastically tolerated – if worn at all – has become a source of student pride.
Australian Financial Review | 21 August 2024
| Category | Winner | University |
|---|---|---|
| Lifetime Achievement Award | Professor Margaret Gardner, AC | |
| Community Engagement | Quality teaching rounds at Cessnock High School | University of Newcastle |
| Emerging Leadership | Professor Tianyi Ma | RMIT University |
| Employability (tied) | Whole of curriculum work integrated learning | Swinburne University of Technology |
| Pharmaceutical Sciences Employability Program | Monash University | |
| Equity & Access | Pathways and Academic Learning Support Centre | University of Newcastle |
| Industry Engagement | The Victorian Virtual Emergency Department | La Trobe University |
| Research Commercialisation (tied) | World’s first fire-retardant paint | University of NSW |
| Kinoxis Therapeutics | University of Sydney | |
| Teaching & Learning Excellence | Training next generation of computer scientists | University of NSW |
Agnes King, Australian Financial Review | 21 August 2024
The winners of all seven categories in The Australian Financial Review Higher Education Awards 2024, which recognise and celebrate the outstanding efforts of Australian universities during the past year, have now been announced.
The categories include community engagement; emerging leadership; employability; industry engagement; equity and access; research commercialisation; and teaching and learning excellence.
Drew Miller, Australian Financial Review | 21 August 2024
Peter Riley had been principal at Cessnock High School for only a couple of months when, in early 2020, he called me to ask whether Quality Teaching Rounds could make a difference at his new school.
I’d worked with Peter at a relatively advantaged school in Newcastle, where Quality Teaching Rounds had supported teachers to deliver high-quality learning experiences and build a strong professional environment. Cessnock High was an altogether different story.
Alanna Tomazin, Newcastle Herald | 21 August 2024
The University of Newcastle has taken top honours in two categories in the 2024 Financial Review Higher Education Awards.
The awards recognise and celebrate the efforts of Australian universities during the past year across eight different categories which include; community engagement, emerging leadership, employability, industry engagement, equity and access, research commercialisation, and teaching and learning excellence.
UON’s Teachers and Teaching Research Centre won the Community Engagement category for its quality teaching rounds at Cessnock High School.
QT Academy News | 3 September 2024
The University of Newcastle’s Teachers and Teaching Research Centre (TTRC) won the Australian Financial Review (AFR) Community Engagement Award at the 2024 Higher Education Awards.
This national award celebrates the outstanding impact of the Centre’s partnership with Cessnock High School which centred on Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR).
