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Cessnock High School

government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school in Australia

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ105561699 ↗
Source-derived summary

Cessnock High School is a government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school, located in Aberdare, in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia.

The school provides the NSW Higher School Certificate (HSC) in Year 12.

The school enrolled approximately 627 students in 2024, from Year 7 to Year 12, of whom 24 percent identified as Indigenous Australians and two percent were from a language background other than English. The school is operated by the NSW Department of Education; the relieving principal is Belinda Cooper.

The school is part of the Cessnock Community of Great Public Schools, a local management group consisting of 15 schools designed to improve learning, engagement and wellbeing in the region.

History

The school originally opened in 1921 at the location of the current Cessnock Public School. The high school was moved to its current site, on Aberdare Road, in May 1938. Around the time of its relocation, it was the biggest school in the state, and one of the biggest schools in Australia. During World War II, slip trenches were dug out at the school.

The school celebrated 75 years in 2013.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cessnock High School” as government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school in Australia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2024, 1921, 1938, 2013—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Cessnock, High and School can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school in Australia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q105561699. Authority coordinates are -32.842, 151.369. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024, 1921, 1938 and 2013.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Cessnock High School”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Cessnock High School primary sources, Cessnock High School archive and Cessnock research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cessnock High School”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Cessnock High School” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.