Kent Street Senior High School

Kent Street Senior High School is a public co-educational specialist high day and boarding school in the Town of Victoria Park, located on Kent Street in East Victoria Park, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia. Its official address is 74 Rathay Street, in the adjacent suburb of Kensington. Over 50 percent of students attending Kent Street Senior High School live in neighbouring or other school districts. This is largely due to the school's specialist programs of aeronautics, cricket, fashion and design, and Centre of Resources Excellence (CoRE). History The Western Australian Parliament received many proposals for a high school to be situated south of the river through the 1920s but a lack of funds mostly due to the depression meant that the school did not eventuate. In 1932 a survey was conducted finding that 410 post-primary-age children were living in the South Perth and Victoria Park areas. Construction of the first building commenced in 1939 and the school commenced operations known as Kent Street Central School in 1940 with 354 students. The buildings of the school are listed on the Western Australia Heritage Register and described as a complex of Inter-war Free Classical style brick and tile buildings and grounds. School teams have entered Australian 5 Highs Cricket Carnival, winning at Brisbane 1994, and at Melbourne 2000 and 2005. The school hosted the carnival in 1996, 2001 and 2006. Campus The school is based primarily on its 4-hectare (10-acre) campus on Kent Street in East Victoria Park. The campus of the school is divided into three levels, because of the sloping hill on which it is positioned. The school has no breaking in age groups except for a Canteen Quad for lower-school students and an Upper School Quad for upper-school students. Aviation course The school began to offer a course in aviation to Year 11 students in 1979. The first class comprised 27 students. In 1988 the course was opened for lower school students to enrol in. Fundraising was required to purchase some of the equipment required and Joan Terry, wife of the late Paul Terry, donated an aircraft hangar in 1994. By 2000 the school had developed a partnership with Edith Cowan University to promote aviation education in Western Australia. The aviation course was one of the courses trialled in the Courses of Study roll-out in 2004 and became a TEE (now ATAR) equivalent course. In 2008, the school joined a partnership with Skywest Airlines (now a subsidy of Virgin Australia), a Western Australian-based regional airline. With this partnership, aviation students can now undertake work experience and Structured Workplace Learning (SWL) at Skywest Airlines, assisting Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (LAMEs) to undertake maintenance on Fokker 50 and Fokker 100 jet aircraft. In addition, upper school aviation students are able to undertake return flights with Virgin Australia pilots. Students work with the pilots to determine the weight and balance of the aircraft, decipher complex meteorological data and apply navigation principles relevant to these sophisticated jet aircraft. Rotary Residential College The Rotary Residential College is on land leased from Kent Street Senior High School. The idea of the college was generated by the constant requests to metropolitan Rotary Clubs for accommodation for high school students wanting to study special courses only provided at city-based high schools. With the help of federal, state and local governments, the corporate sector and guided by some individual Rotary Clubs, this project has been operating since 1991. Some 450 boarders have availed themselves of the accommodation and they have come from nearly 100 country towns. Notable alumni See also List of boarding schools in Australia List of schools in the Perth metropolitan area References Further reading Ex-Principal, Rod Breseford History of Kent Street Senior High School, written by past staff in 1985 Student Records located in the School Science Block External links Official school website Kentian Society School website on www.TeachWeb.com.au