Macquarie Fields High School

Macquarie Fields High School
Macquarie Fields High School
	File:MFHS logo.jpg
Location
	Macquarie Fields, New South Wales; Australia
Information
Type	Public, Co-educational, Secondary, Day school, Partially Selective
Motto	Loyalty, Sincerity and Generosity
Established	1981
Principal	Jan Dolstra
Enrolment	1044
Colour(s)	Maroon, Green, White, Grey
Website	http://www.macfields-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/

Macquarie Fields High School (abbreviated MFHS) is a co-educational, academically selective high school in Macquarie Fields, Sydney, Australia.

Macquarie Fields High School is a selective and comprehensive high school catering for grades seven to twelve, located in the south-west of Sydney. The school is administered by the New South Wales state government. The school has two avenues for admission and runs two streams of classes: "Selective", in which students are accepted after sitting a state-wide competitive entrance examination, and "Community", in which students are allowed to reside in the local community.

History

The school began operating at the current site in 1981. It was originally set up as a temporary school in demountable accommodation, to provide for the growing number of students between James Meehan High School and Ingleburn High School during the 1980s. The parents fought hard to establish a permanent school on the site and eventually were successful in achieving their goal. The first Year 12 group was educated in demountables.

The first Principal was Mr. Don Harwin and his Deputy was Mr. Mike Wilson. Harwin began in 1981 with approximately fourteen staff members and was appointed to Menai High School in 1988. His term was considered a great success in terms of building strong community links and academic programs.

The permanent school building was completed in 1987 and the new buildings were fully occupied for one term before the end of that year. The hall/gymnasium is the oldest building at the present site.

During most of its early history, the school catered for students with a wide range of abilities and socio-economic backgrounds. The school was funded by the Disadvantaged Schools Program until the end of 1989. During 1988, the school was targeted to become one of a number of new Selective High Schools that were to be established the following year. The school was chosen because of its strategic location in relation to transport and also because the two other High Schools were in such close proximity. It was felt that the population explosion had largely passed and that the two neighboring schools would be able to cope with slightly increased enrolments resulting from our school being made a Selective High School.

Since 1989, the school has had a mixed mode intake of selective and community students. In 1994, in response to parents concerns about an imbalance between the number of selective and community students in Year 7 intakes the Department of School Education established a special committee of review to determine the future composition of the student body. The recommendation of the review committee was that the school would continue in the mixed mode for the foreseeable future. Each Year 7 intake is to have a maximum of 90 selective and 90 community students.^[2]

Transport

The school, located within the internalities of the residential area of Macquarie Fields has created challenges^{[citation needed]} for the majority of selective stream students who commute from a broad geographical area within Sydney. Due to inadequate bus services provided by Interline^{[citation needed]} transporting a portion of students from Ingleburn Station in the morning and to Macquarie Fields Station in the afternoon, this has thus lead to spectacular scenes of students mass-commuting on foot to and from Macquarie Fields Station and the school along a stretch of road 3.5 km in length. "The walk", locally known, especially in the summer with Saywell road (part of the route) with a substantial uphill gradient has been cited by many students of difficulty in reaching both the remotely, sparsely serviced train station and the relative remote location of the school.

Students

There are currently approximately 1030 students enrolled through Years 7 through to 12. Macquarie Fields High School is both a community and academically selective high school; admission to Macquarie Fields in Year 7 is by a government examination, the Selective High Schools Test, which is open to all Year 6 students in NSW or opened to students living in the Macquarie Fields student catchment area. A small number of students from other high schools are accepted into years 8 to 11, with application made directly to the school. Of the student population, over 72% are from a non-English-speaking background, predominantly Vietnamese (35.7%), Chinese (26.9%), Bangladeshi (16.3%), Indian (10.2%), Filipino (4.4%), Arabic (4%). But the school's not nice to anyone parents or students

Departments

The school contains several departments, teaching one or a variety of related Board of Studies–endorsed subjects. The departments are:

English (Subjects: English(Advanced), English (Standard), English Extension 1, English Extension 2, Drama.)
Mathematics (Subjects: General Mathematics, Mathematics, Mathematics Extension 1, Mathematics Extension 2)
Science (Subjects: Science, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Environmental Science, Senior Science)
Creative Arts (Subjects: Visual Arts, Music)
Social Sciences (Subjects: Geography, Commerce, Business Studies, Economics, Society and Culture, Psychology)
History and Languages other than English (LOTE) (Subjects: Ancient History, Modern History, History Extension, Legal Studies, French, German, Japanese)
Personal Development, Health and Physical Education
Industrial arts (Subjects: Design & Technology, Technical Drawing, Engineering Studies, Software Design and Development, Information Technology (SVET))
Home Science (Subjects: Food Technology, Hospitality (SVET))
Welfare
Careers

Academic Results

Although being a partially selective high school, the friendly and highly co-operative environment between non selective and selective students have contributed to academic results increasing every year in government NAPLAN literacy and numeracy tests, School Certificate Tests and the Higher School Certificate. These advances have ultimately resulted into Macquarie Fields High School being among the state's leading schools. The school was ranked just out of the top 100 of New South Wales Schools in terms of 2009 HSC outcomes ranking 103rd and of 2012 ranking 90th.

Alumni

Brett Emerton- International Australian soccer player
Alyson Annan- Olympic hockey player
Shayne McMenemy- Professional Rugby league player

References

^ "Macquarie Fields High School". MySchool. 2011. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
^ http://www.macfields-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/mfhistory.htm

External links

33°59′47″S 150°53′06″E / 33.99639°S 150.88500°E / -33.99639; 150.88500

[1] "Macquarie Fields High School". MySchool. 2011. Retrieved November 5, 2011.

[2] ttp://www.macfields-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/mfhistory.htm

[1]

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v t e Selective and specialist high schools of New South Wales, Australia
Fully selective high schools	Baulkham Hills Caringbah Fort Street Girraween Gosford Hornsby Girls' James Ruse Agricultural Merewether Normanhurst Boys North Sydney Boys North Sydney Girls Northern Beaches: Manly Campus Penrith Selective Smith's Hill St George Girls Sydney Boys Sydney Girls Sydney Tech
Partially selective high schools	Alexandria Park Blacktown Boys Blacktown Girls Chatswood Elizabeth Macarthur Grafton Gorokan Karabar Kooringal Macquarie Fields Moorebank Parramatta Peel Prairiewood Rose Bay Secondary Ryde Secondary Sefton St Marys Senior Sydney Secondary Tempe
Selective agricultural high schools	Farrer Memorial Hurlstone James Ruse Yanco
Selective creative and performing arts primary^{[note a]} and high schools	Australian Performing Arts Grammar School Brent Street Academy Campbelltown Performing Arts High School Conservatorium High School Granville South High School Hunter School of the Performing Arts^{[note a]} Northmead Creative and Performing Arts High School Ku-ring-gai High School The McDonald College^{[note a]} Nepean Creative and Performing Arts High School Newtown High School of the Performing Arts Village Nation College Wollongong High School of the Performing Arts
Specialist sports high schools	Endeavour Sports Hills Sports Illawarra Sports Matraville Sports Narrabeen Sports Westfields Sports
List of selective high schools in New South Wales Selective schools of New South Wales Schools portal New South Wales portal ^a : Year 3 to Year 12