Intensive Chinese Network (ICN) is an informal network of schools in Australia that are committed to the teaching of Chinese beyond the standard recommendation for mainstream Languages curriculum. ICN schools are located across various Australian states and territories and the ICN serves as a platform for professional development tailor-made for the unique contexts and challenges of ICN schools.

There are two types of ICN schools - CLIL Schools and Bilingual Schools.

CLIL schools typically offer Chinese as a subject with significantly more time-on-task than mainstream schools. Furthermore, they also teach other curriculum areas in Chinese, e.g. a school may have 4 sessions of Chinese a week and 4 sessions of Science taught in Chinese. The pedagogical approach adopted by these schools is known as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and such arrangements allow students to have additional exposure to the language in an authentic and meaningful context.

Some schools in the ICN are also known as Chinese-English bilingual schools. Even though the definition of bilingual schools differs across each state and territory, bilingual schools in Australia typically operate on a partial immersion model, with at least 30% of the curriculum hours being spent in Chinese. Bilingual schools have the ability to create a more immersive environment for language learning by taking language outside of the classroom and balancing the symbolic presence of both English and Chinese in the school.