Thornbury-Darebin Secondary College

Infobox Secondary school
name = Thornbury High School

motto = N/A
established = 1901
address = Collins Street, Thornbury, Vic 3072
city = Melbourne
state = Victoria,
country = Australia
type = Government Secondary School
principal = Peter Edgeberg
enrollment = 500
grades = 7-12
colours = Gold, Blue, Navy Blue, White

free_label_1 = Vice Principal)
free_1 =
Meredith Stephenson
website = http://www.thornburyhs.vic.edu.au

Locality

Thornbury High School is located nine kilometres north-east from Melbourne’s city centre, just off Albert Street and bordering Dundas Street, in the suburb of Thornbury. This is a suburb less than half way between the city centre and the outer fringe of metropolitan Melbourne’s suburban spread. Housing in the suburbs of Fairfield and Alphington to the south of the school has become expensive in recent years, changing the demographic character of these areas. The suburbs surrounding the school are Preston, Heidelberg, Ivanhoe, Fairfield, Alphington, and Northcote.

The College is in the municipality served by the City of Darebin, whose municipal offices are based at the old Preston Town Hall. Thornbury is essentially a residential suburb, settled during the middle decades of the last century. There are manufacturing and industrial areas as well, particularly to the north of the school and near to the Darebin Creek. Northland Shopping Centre is two kilometres to the north of the school, and La Trobe University a few kilometres north again. There are campuses of the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT) on St Georges Road, Preston and on Bell Street, Heidelberg.

Transport

The major roads around the school are well served by bus routes, both north-south and east-west. The nearest railway line is that to Eltham and Hurstbridge, and the nearest station to the school is Fairfield. There is a bus service north along Station Street (which becomes Albert Street), and goes close to the school. The nearest tram services are along High Street and St Georges Road to the west.

Nearby schools

Other state secondary schools in the locality are Northland Secondary College, Preston Girls Secondary College, Reservoir District Secondary College, Banksia Secondary College and Northcote High School. Local state primary schools include Wales Street PS, Penders Grove PS, Thornbury PS, Northcote PS, Fairfield PS, Alphington PS, Preston South PS, Preston East PS and Bell PS.

Brief history of school and student background

The school was formed from the reorganisation of Thornbury High School and Northcote Technical School (later known as Darebin Parklands Secondary College). This took effect in 1992. For several years the new college Thornbury Darebin occupied two sites, with the junior school (years 7 to 10) on the high school site and the senior school (years 11 and 12) on the technical school site. The plan was to amalgamate the new college onto one site, and building works to this effect took place during 1998 and 1999. The senior campus students joined the junior campus in 2000. The old technical school site has since been refurbished and become the site of the Distance Education Centre and the administrative base for the Victorian School of Languages. In 2005 the school’s name reverted to Thornbury High School

The College is a medium size secondary school. The College is in ‘like school group’ 9, meaning it has a high proportion of students who come from families where a language other than English (LOTE) is usually spoken, and a high proportion of students whose families receive the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).

The main language backgrounds of students are English (69% of school population), Greek (8% of school), Arabic (5%), Macedonian (3%), and Italian (2%). There is also a number of students of Koorie background at the school.

External links

* [http://www.thornburyhs.vic.edu.au Official website]