CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

Cromer Campus

Australian state school

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ5187592
Source-derived summary

The Cromer Campus of the Northern Beaches Secondary College is a government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school, located in Cromer, a suburb on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Established in 1976 as Cromer High School, the campus caters for approximately 1170 students from Year 7 to Year 12. The school is operated by the New South Wales Department of Education; the principal is Justin Hong.

Its catchment zone covers the suburbs of Cromer, Brookvale, Dee Why, Wheeler Heights, Narraweena and Collaroy Plateau.

Facilities

The school provides services for students such as extension classes for gifted students and talented programs catering for higher ability students. Cromer Campus also provides a gymnasium, networked IT lab, drama and art studios as well as large playing fields, netball courts and basketball courts.

Sexual abuse claims and murder investigations

Sexual abuse claims about both male and female teachers grooming and having sexual relationships with students during the 1980s came to light as part of The Teacher's Pet podcast into the disappearance of Lynette Dawson. In August 2022, Physical Education teacher Chris Dawson was convicted of the murder of Lynette Dawson, his former wife.

Several teachers at Cromer and other northern beaches schools were identified by former children as grooming students. Peter Wayne Scott, a former teacher, was found guilty in 2014 of homosexual sex with a minor, indecent assault, and providing a stupefying drug for the purpose of having homosexual sex with a minor from his activities at the school between 1984 and 1986.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cromer Campus” as australian state school. 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—1976, 1170, 2022, 2014—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1976. The account is most persuasive where Cromer, Campus and Australian can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as australian state school. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5187592. Authority coordinates are -33.737, 151.284. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976, 1170, 2022 and 2014.

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 “Cromer Campus”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Cromer Campus primary sources, Cromer Campus archive and Cromer 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 “Cromer Campus”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Cromer Campus” 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.