Whilst Marrickville Intensive English Centre's focus and aim is to assist, consolidate and extend new migrants' and International Students' English language skills. Students have the opportunity to maintain their own or home language by studying it through the Department of Educations' Saturday School of Community Languages (SSCL).
Students can be enrolled when they have reached a sufficient level of English to be able to be successful in the course and they can continue studying it when they transfer to their high school up to Year 12 for the Higher School Certificate exam.
The SSCL gives students the opportunity to study the language they speak at home if a course in that language is not offered at their own school or college.
The school is a public, secondary school which operates only on Saturdays at 14 different high school locations across Sydney, 1 in Wollongong and 1 in Newcastle. Classes for Years 7 to 10 (junior years) are usually from 8.30am-10.30am and for Years 11 and 12 (senior years) from 8:30am to 11:45am.
Around Marrickville Intensive English Centre the following Saturday schools operate; Ashfield Boys High School Centre, Dulwich Hill High School Centre, St George Girls High School Centre, Randwick High School, etc, and students can study at one of them depending where the language is offered.
Approximately 4000 students in Years 7 to 12, from both government and non-government schools and TAFE colleges, are enrolled.
Saturday school students follow Board of Studies syllabuses in 25 languages. These languages are assessable as part of their Stage 5 and Higher School Certificate studies.
The languages students can study are:
Arabic, Armenian, Bengali (Bangla), Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, Filipino, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Macedonian, Modern Greek, Maltese, Persian (Farsi and Dari), Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.
What are the benefits?
Studying the language students speak at home:
- helps students maintain rewarding relationships with their parents/caregivers, grandparents, relatives and other community members.
- promotes in students a sense of cultural identity, resulting in heightened self-confidence and self-esteem.
- provides an opportunity for students to develop high levels of skill in the language they speak at home.
- improves students' performance across the curriculum
- places students in a better position to take advantage of employment opportunities.
How do students enrol?
Enrolment forms are available from the Head Teacher of MIEC for the students. Families will need to sign the documents as well and then students will be notified when they will be able to commence their home language studies at SSCL.
For more information about the SSCL, please visit the Saturday School of Community Languages website or contact them on the international phone number and Fax number which can both be seen below:
Tel: +61 2 9244 5315
Fax: +61 2 9266 8098