Westfields Sports High School

Westfields Sports High School (abbreviated as WSHS) is a government-funded co-educational comprehensive and specialist secondary day school, with speciality in sports, located in Fairfield West, a western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Established in 1963, the school catered for approximately 1,440 students in 2024, from Year 7 to Year 12, of whom five percent identified as Indigenous Australians and 64 percent were from a language background other than English. The school is operated by the NSW Department of Education; the principal is Andrew Rogers. Westfields Sports High School is a member of the NSW Sports High Schools Association. The school sits on a total area of approximately seven hectares (seventeen acres). History The school was established in 1963 and opened by Edward Gough Whitlam, later Australian Prime Minister. The school's first Principal was J. P. Quinlan and its first year enrolment had 300 students. Principal Quinlan had originally wanted the school's motto to be ANZAC, but that was not allowed, so he then chose the Latin: Fortitudo, translated as "courage and valour", that remains the school's motto today. The school originally had four sporting houses: Prospect (team colours black and gold); Kanangra (red); Werriwa (blue) and Lansdowne (green). In 1964 the new student intake was even larger than the previous year, with close to a thousand new students enrolled. Classes were listed alphabetically from A down to J to include them all. That year also saw a massive fire at the school that affected mainly the science block and the technical arts block, rendering many of the classrooms unusable. Classrooms were temporarily offered at the local primary school, Fairfield West Public School on Hamilton Road, until the burnt out classrooms could be restored. Each day for close to a year, around 100 or so new Year 7 students would attend assembly at Westfields, then march up the hill to classrooms at Fairfield West PS. The cause of the fire was never stated, but it was strongly suspected that the expulsion of several students earlier in the year had led to a grudge arson attack, since the words "N R gang" had been painted in large letters across the girls' and boys' toilet blocks. From the 1960s to the 1980s the school achieved moderate success in sports and was on the rise during the late 1980s. The then principal, Philip Tucker, had wanted to establish Westfields as a school that could provide any sports person who attended, a pathway to the Australian Institute of Sport, and extend their possibilities beyond high school level sporting competition. The school was eventually officially declared a sports school on 24 April 1991. Notable teachers who taught at the school in the early years of their careers include the artist Mary Shackman and the international concert pianist Michael Leslie. Since 1997, there has been an annual student and teacher exchange scheme with Kasukabe High School, from Kasukabe, Saitama, Japan. In 2008, the International Olympic Committee recognised Westfields Sports for their involvement in producing many Australian Olympians with a special Sport and Youth Trophy. In 2023, it was awarded the Australian Olympic Pathway Schools designation. Enrolment policy The school has a partially selective approach to enrolment, with students needing to either live catchment area of the school or demonstrate their ability in sport. The school is very well regarded for having produced sporting talent in a number of different areas of sporting endeavour, and has received a range of grants to support its work with sporting talent. Talented sports program Sports offered at Westfields Sports High School include athletics, Australian rules football, baseball, basketball, boxing, cricket, dance, equestrian, golf, gymnastics, hockey, netball, rowing, rugby league, rugby union, soccer, softball, swimming, table tennis, tennis, volleyball, and wrestling. Basketball Team Achievements Championship Women (Open) Australian Schools Championships Runners Up: 2023 Notable alumni See also List of government schools in New South Wales: Q–Z Selective school (New South Wales) Education in Australia References