Ascham Sydney senior school

At the heart of Ascham’s learning and teaching excellence is The Dalton Plan. Starting in Year 7, it stimulates self-reliance, assists the girls to assume responsibility for their own learning and engages both learner and teacher in intellectual partnership. The Dalton Plan at Ascham involves a combination of lessons and studies where each student makes active decisions about how she works and learns, in collaboration with her teachers. This way of learning, and the confidence and independence it gives, stays with our girls throughout their tertiary study and into their careers. It helps lift and sustain the academic progress of every one of our girls, whatever their abilities and aspirations. The fact that over 95% of our girls go on to tertiary study, both in Australia and overseas, is testimony to the success of The Dalton Plan.

Girls school

Life at Ascham is busy. Nearly every girl in the senior school is involved in a variety of co-curricular activities, be they sport, music, drama, debating, chess, dance or some of the many House activities during the year. From our very own flash mob (to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the school) to impromptu lunchtime dance sessions, choir practices to sports trials, social justice meetings to planting a forest, Ascham girls are wholehearted in their participation in school life. But, it is not merely about participation – it is a generous giving of their time and energy to each other, to the school and to the wider community.
While the majority of girls enter the Senior School from our Junior School (Fiona), the Year 7 intake also comprises girls from public schools and other junior schools from Sydney and beyond. This includes our boarders, the great majority of whom come to us from rural New South Wales.

Overzicht van het terrein rondom de school

The girls are at the heart of everything we do

Ascham has a diverse student body. No two of our families are identical, but they all hold one value dear – the importance of their daughters’ education. For us, the girls are at the heart of everything we do. The Dalton Plan enables our exceptional staff, with their enthusiasm for their subjects and their dedication to the girls, to create strong positive learning relationships throughout the girls’ time at the school.

Girls in the Senior School spend up to half their academic periods in studies, where they work either independently or with a teacher, individually or in small groups. The assignment is the focus of their attention in studies.
The remainder of the school day is given to class lessons. These operate in the more traditional fashion, the specialist subject teacher presenting the scope of a topic in readiness for girls to begin on the set assignment which is developed through further consultation with the teacher in studies and then submitted on schedule.

Beeld: Roel Rohmer