Buckley Park College

Infobox school
name = Buckley Park College


motto = "Build Your Wings"
type = Secondary, Coeducation, Victorian Government State School
address = Cooper Street
city = Essendon
state = Victoria
postcode = 3040
country = Australia flagicon|Australia
website = [http://www.buckleyparkco.vic.edu.au/ www.buckleyparkco.vic.edu.au]
principal = Mr. Tony Tartaro

Buckley Park College is a medium sized, public secondary school located in Essendon, Victoria, Australia. It has around 800 students from Year 7 to 12. Its slogan 'Build your Wings' is featured on the school logo.

Premises

Buckley Park Secondary College is divided into five separate 'Blocks' that are being built, or corridors which are parallel and are connected by a main hallway. Each Block is referred to by its assigned letter from the northern-most "A Block" through to southern-most "E Block". Each classroom is then referred to by its block and number, for example; C3 is room 3 in C Block.The main entry, at the front of the school, leads into the main hallway where the School Office is situated, directly at the front of B Block. Also located in B Block are the staff rooms, the Sick-bay, Principal and Vice Principals offices, the VCE common-room and the school canteen, where it is readily accessible for all students.

A Block is generally used to house the entirety of Year 7 Students' home rooms, the remaining rooms generally being used to house the Year 8 students and other miscellaneous classes. Rooms of note in A Block are A1 and A9 which are generally accepted as the rooms where German and Japanese classes are held respectively.

C Block houses the remainder of the Year 8 students along with some Year 9. Rooms of note in C Block are the IT Labs, the Textiles room, the Home Economics Room, and the Secondary German Room.D Block houses the remaining Year 9 students and Year 10 students. Rooms of note are the four science labs and an art room, often used for media studies.

E Block is mainly based around the arts, as it consists of six classrooms - a music room, two art rooms, a Computer Lab mainly used for art designing and two rooms used for wood production.

Parallel to E Block, but not connected by the main hallway is the Performing Arts Centre, usually referred to as the PAC. This is where drama classes and musical performances are held. It has a large room with a slightly raised stage (for performing). It also has an adjoining classroom with a wall which can be removed to allow space for an audience (this second classroom is usually referred to as PAC2).

To the north of A Block is a large gymnasium for sport and physical education. It consists of a large hall, two storerooms for sporting equipment, two changing-rooms (for male and female), an office to hold the belongings of students, and an upstairs mezzanine with table tennis tables and weightlifting equipment. West of A Block is the library. Along with its relatively sparse book collection, it sports computers and newspaper archives used for research. The library is well equipped with computers, which are always available for use by students either before, during and after school.

To fit the rapidly growing school population, four portable classrooms have been added to the west of C and D Block. These portables are referred to as WP1 through to WP4. Due to renovations, more portable classrooms have also been added to the far north of the school (near the gymnasium).The school also includes two basketball/netball courts, a hockey field and three tennis courts. Due to the lack of space on the hockey field students regularly choose to go to the large football field on the block north of the school during lunchtimes, named Buckley Park (which is where the school name originated) and are supervised by staff.

In between the Performing Arts Centre and E block, there is an amphitheatre with a 'stage' for outdoor performances.

The school has an exceptional amount of technology available to students; there are more than 10 computers per block, laptops are available for VCE students and projectors can be borrowed for classroom works.

LOTE (Languages other than English)

Buckley Park College currently offers either Japanese or German as LOTE subjects. Students choose which language they wish to learn in the year before they commence school, and continue learning that language to VCE, where they have the choice to discontinue LOTE studies. There are currently 2 Japanese and 2 German teachers. Each student has approximately 3 periods (approx. 150 minutes) of LOTE per week.

Staff

There are roughly 80 staff members at Buckley Park College, including teachers, canteen volunteers, office members and the staff involved in running the school and caring for students. The principal of the school, Tony Tartaro, has been in the position for some years, since moving from his placement as vice-principal at Williamstown Secondary College. The current vice-principals of the school are Duncan Brooks and David Lee. They and Mr Tartaro have their own private offices to manage the school, situated in 'B Block'. The staff are mainly based around 'B Block', where each teacher has his or her private compartment in their staffroom. There are four staffrooms holding at least 15 teachers each along with a social staffroom where the teachers may gather at breaktimes.

Annual events

Intraschool events are often performed between the different [House system|houses] . The students and teachers of Buckley Park are divided into four different houses, with their respective colours:- Croft House (Yellow)- Hoffman House (Red)- Graves House (Green)- Buckley House (Blue)Each house is named after a significant contributor to the school or area.

Throughout the school year, these four houses compete in different school events, including:

* Swimming Sports:Students compete in different swimming events, gaining points for their house for each win and student participating.

* House Theatre Festival:Here houses compete to create and perform a short play in front of parents and teachers. Students create a 10-minute play with 10 actors that they will perform for parents and teachers in the PAC. A panel of judges judge the best play, also awarding Best Set, Best Costume, Best Script, Best Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress.

*Athletics:Students compete in athletic events, including running, long jump, high jump, and shot put.

*School Production:The school production is open for all students who pass the auditions. It is a major production that is generally performed at the Clocktower Centre. The production is written by either Elena Sabellico Margie Bainbridge or Nick Pease.

EALP (Acclerated Program)

Buckley Park has an accelerated learning program in which students learn a year ahead of their year level (ie; year sevens in SEALP do year 8 level work in subjects such as Mathematics, Science & also endure more challenging work in English & Humanities). To be selected for the program students must first sit an English, Maths and Written Expression test. The top scoring students then have an interview with either the SEALP coordinator or the Year 7 coordinator. Students in the programme participate in the same events as other students in their year level (such as year level specific camps). Year 7 SEALP students do not participate in the Ancient Greek Festival, instead they work on a project called 'Night of the Notables'.

Upcoming renovations

Buckley Park College has been given a government grant, in order to carry out refurbishment. This project commenced near the end of August 2007, and is expected to be completed by late 2008.Currently, the new canteen has been replaced. The rebuilt section of A corridor is also finished, so that there will be more classrooms available to students. There is also a 10 year plan to rebuild the rest of the school.During this time, portable classrooms have been erected to compensate for the lost classrooms.

External links

* [http://www.buckleyparkco.vic.edu.au/ Buckley Park College homepage]