About our school

Croydon Community School is a small secondary school with a strong history of providing an alternative to mainstream secondary educational settings. Many of the young people who choose to enrol at our school have not experienced learning success, or a sense of connectedness to mainstream schools for a range of reasons.

In our school we endeavour to build positive relationships between adults and our young people so that they might flourish and realise their potential. In order to facilitate these relationships we plan for smaller class sizes than many other schools, and students will usually have fewer teachers than their peers in mainstream secondary schools. It is not unusual for advisory teachers and education support staff to manage the same group of students throughout the duration of their secondary schooling at Croydon Community School. 

The school is a member of Big Picture Learning Australia, and has adopted the Big Picture Learning design to engage students in their learning and to develop the whole child. At our school, advisory teachers, and education support staff, assist young people to set personalised learning goals based upon their passions or interests. Staff strive to enable student voice, encouraging young people to exercise as much choice as possible in their learning. Advisory teachers also ensure that the teaching and learning program as a whole meets the standards of the Victorian Curriculum F–10 and that it enables the reporting of student achievement against the achievement standards. Find out more about the Big Picture Learning Design here.

The school offers the Victorian Certificate of Education Vocational Major (VCE VM) for students in Years 11 & 12.  Students who wish to undertake VCE subjects individually as part of their senior secondary studies are supported to do so through Virtual Schools Victoria (VSV) with support from staff onsite.  Previously this has included:  Maths Methods, Biology, History, Media Studies, etc.  In addition to this, we support students by facilitating recognised VET courses onsite.  In 2025, we are offering Certification III in Music Performance (auspiced by Collarts; College of the Arts in Melbourne).

The school acknowledges that some students may need extra social, emotional or educational support at school, and that the needs of students will change over time as they grow and learn.  We commit to resourcing a highly skilled wellbeing team to support young people and their families to engage with education. Find out more about our Wellbeing Team and programs here.

Croydon Community School has a Re-engagement program (‘Croydon Re-engagement Centre’) for young people who have been dis-engaged from education for a wide variety of reasons. The Re-engagement Centre’s priority is to build healthy relationships with the young people, their families and their support teams. We work in a trauma informed manner, primarily concentrating on the young person’s personal and social capabilities. Find out more about the Re-engagement Centre here.