Cleveland Street Intensive English High School
School in Sydney

Learning English in a specialist lofty school environment. Cleveland Street Intensive English Lofty School continues a lengthy and proud history of 160 years of continuous public education on its site. It is one of the oldest public schools in Australia still operating on its site. The Cleveland Street school site is like a book with many chapters. Through its age, position, students and staff it has connections with many of the crucial events in Australian and world history. From the 1850's Gold Rushes until the present, its walls have heard tales of world wars and economic depressions, as well as stories of refugees from many of the world's troubled lands. The many buildings that make up the stylish school not only illustrate temporary styles in architecture over the period, but reflect the temporary social attitudes to education and teaching methodology. One consequence of this increase was the need to construct more schools for the expanding numbers of school aged children. In 1851, some land was reserved in the Cleveland Paddocks for a school to be established. In 1856, changing prefabricated galvanized iron buildings were imported from Liverpool, England and erected on the Cleveland Street site. The architect of the fresh buildings was G.A. The education authorities of the day wanted the site to be impressive and spent 6,397 on the project, a several sum of money for the time. The style of the 1867 building has been described as Gothic Revival. It originally consisted of three schoolrooms, which were designed to accommodate hundreds of students. One room was for girls, one for boys and one for infants. The method of instruction at the time was the Lancastrian school system based on a teacher monitor approach. Kemp and the style was described as Moderated Romanesque Style. It was at this time that the City Council granted the school its own access to and use of Prince Alfred Park as a playground. In 1913, the school became an Intermediate Lofty School for boys and girls. In 1924 another building was erected on the site, this time a threestorey building said to resemble an egg crate. In 1968, a modern building was constructed on the grounds, consisting of three levels and containing specialist rooms. The site at Cleveland Street became an annex to the fresh lofty school, but with a separate function, that of providing intensive English language tuition for newly arrived migrant students. Since 1977 Cleveland Street intensive English center has provided English language tuition for thousands of students from over a hundred countries. In one capacity or another, the school operates 7 days a week.