Joseph Banks Secondary College (abbreviated as JBSC) is an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

co-educational

high High may refer to: Science and technology * Height * High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area * High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory * High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift ...

day school, located in Banksia Grove, a suburb north of

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Western Australia.

Overview

The new school was first announced in March 2012. Construction started on the first stage of the school in June 2012. That stage cost $48.7 million, and had a capacity of 850 students. This stage opened for the start of the 2015 school year to 226 Year 7 students and 192 Year 8 students. Joseph Banks 1773 Reynolds

The school's namesake is

Joseph Banks Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences. Banks made his name on the 1766 natural-history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James ...

, an English botanist who was on

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

's first great voyage which visited the east coast of Australia. He catalogued several plants, including the genus '' Banksia'', which is the namesake of Banksia Grove. In keeping with the theme of botany, the school's houses are named after local plants, and the logo is a representation of a Banksia flower. The houses are Ornata,

Formosa Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is an island country located in East Asia. The main island of Taiwan, formerly known in the Western political circles, press and literature as Formosa, makes up 99% of the land area of the territorie ...

Incana The Socotra warbler (''Incana incana'') is a species of bird in the family Cisticolidae. It is monotypic within the genus ''Incana''. It is endemic to Socotra. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry shrubland and subtropical or trop ...

and Serrata. The $22.5 million second stage of construction opened mid-2017, expanding the capacity of the school to 1,450 students. By 2020 though, the school had a student population of 1,513, requiring five transportable classrooms. In 2020, as part of the state's

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

recovery plan, construction of a new $16.1 million building was announced. The new building is planned to include a "Space Science Education Centre". The school's foundation principal stated that "it had been a long-term goal to establish the school as a specialist science and mathematics school".

Local intake area

Joseph Banks Secondary College's local intake area covers Banksia Grove, parts of Carabooda, Carramar, Mariginiup, Neerabup, Nowergup, Pinjar and Tapping. Students living in the local intake area have a guaranteed place at the school if they apply. Students living outside the local intake area may apply and they will be accepted on a case-by-case basis.

Academic results

2019 was the first year where Year 12s graduated Joseph Banks Secondary College.

Student numbers

Public transport

Joseph Banks Secondary College is serviced by two bus routes, 390 and 391.

References