While Dr Scott Sleap, deputy principal STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) for the Cessnock High School Learning Community may have recently received a Prime Minister’s Award for the work he’s doing with the creation of the Cessnock Academy of STEM Excellence (CASE), he insists it’s a collaborative effort.

“This whole program wouldn’t have happened without the leadership and foresight from the principals that got together to do this,” Dr Sleap said. 

“It was their initial idea of getting someone in that could help coordinate stem projects that transition from primary to high school. 

“It’s not common in education, for a lot of people to collaborate in such a way and it just doesn’t work without collaboration.”

CASE is a partnership between Cessnock High School and its feeder primary schools (Cessnock, Cessnock East, Kearsley, Kitchener and Abermain) and has been funded by those schools.

Cessnock Public School principal Steve Morgan said the innovative program was about building on what was already being done by the partner schools and creating a consistent approach. 

“It’s taking the good things we’re already doing in our schools and, instead of having STEM as a stand-alone thing, it’s embedding those stem based skills and practices into our programs and into our day to day work in the school,” he said

“It’s also about building critical thinking skills, collaboration and inquiry skills.”

With the three-year project just ten months old, CASE has already seen considerable success with the Department of Education now looking to the Cessnock region as leaders.

“The department is looking to us as basically the leaders and one of the good things is that we’re sharing it. What we’re doing here is being made available to the rest of the state,” he said.

“One of the mantras for CASE is to give our kids an unfair advantage in the workforce. 

“I believe that what we are doing from primary right through to high school is going to produce young people who our industry partners are going to want.”