Kalgoorlie-Boulder Community High School is a comprehensive

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 ''Öffentlichk ...

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

high day and boarding school, located in Kalgoorlie, a regional centre located in the Eastern Goldfields region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. Along with

Eastern Goldfields College Eastern Goldfields College is a public co-educational high day school, located in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. It is located on the Curtin University campus in Kalgoorlie and shares many facilities with the University. The College accepts y ...

the school was formerly known as Eastern Goldfields Senior High School until the campuses were separated.

History

The school was established in 2006 and caters for students from

Year 7 Year 7 is an educational year group in schools in many countries including England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand. It is the seventh full year (or eighth in Australia) of compulsory education and is roughly equivalent to grade 6 in the United ...

Year 10 Year 10 is the tenth year of compulsory education in schools in many countries including England, Australia, India, Northern Ireland, New Zealand and Wales. It is the tenth or eleventh year of compulsory education. It is approximately equivalent ...

. Paul Matthews was the inaugural principal and was followed by Terry Martino in 2010. Terry Martino moved to

Northam Senior High School Northam Senior High School is a comprehensive public co-educational high school, located in Northam, a regional centre in the Wheatbelt region, east of Perth, Western Australia. History The school was established in 1921 and by 2020 had an ...

in 2013 and was replaced by the deputy principal Vicki Bogensperger. The current principal is Douglas Dearle, since 2020. Early in 2012 the school received a commendation award from the local chamber of commerce. The deputy principal, Vicki Bogensperger, accepted the award on behalf of Terry Martino and remarked "''We are on an improvement journey at Kalgoorlie-Boulder Community High School and in a sense, the work will never be complete''." Later the same year the school was reviewed by Expert Review Group appointed by the

Department of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

. The director of the group commented on the "''dramatic improvements at the school"'' in the areas of uniform, behaviour and mobile phone policy. The director, Brett Hunt, also commented "''The school’s environment has a long history of being unsettled, but we found the current team has focused on developing a welcoming, structured and predictable environment for everyone''." At the start of the 4th term of 2016, the first stage of KBCHS' $45 million redevelopment program was completed and opened, which includes new English, Mathematics and Humanities building blocks, and previous buildings were demolished to make way for stages 2 and 3. In July 2017, the second stage was completed, which included the new Visual Arts and Eastern Goldfields Education Support Centre buildings. The third stage was completed and opened in late 2017, which involved landscaping and new pathways connecting stages 1 and 2, and fully completed the school's redevelopment.

Enrolment

Enrolments at the school have fluctuated with total enrolments ranging from 510 (2010) to 1,036 (2015). The migration of Year 7 students to public high schools were the likely cause in the 301 enrolment number spike from 2014 to 2015.

Incidents

The school had many reported incidents of violence in 2009 between

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and Maori students, resulting in cultural advisors being employed to tackle the problem. The school was in the headlines in 2010 when a teacher set an assignment asking the students how they would launch a

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., w ...

or biological

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

attack on an unsuspecting Australian community to kill as many civilians as possible. The assignment was withdrawn after students complained. The teacher was counselled. In May of the same year, a male teacher was assaulted by a 13-year-old girl, the girl hit the man several times and was later charged by police for assaulting a public officer. The girl pulled out clumps of his hair and hit him with a bin, she had to be pulled off the teacher by his colleagues who heard his screams. Another incident occurred in 2010 when a relief teacher was dismissed after students pushed, swore at and assaulted him. The teacher was ordered to leave the premises but later took the WA Department of Education to the industrial relations commission. It was found that the teacher was unfairly dismissed, the students involved having a history of falsely accusing teachers, and the department was ordered to rehire the teacher. The school ranked second in the state, behind Gilmore College, for school suspensions given to students in 2010. The school made the front page of ''

The West Australian ''The West Australian'' is the only locally edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia. It is owned by Seven West Media (SWM), as is the state's other major newspaper, '' The Sunday Times''. It is the second-oldest continuous ...

'' in early 2013 when it was revealed students from the school had formed 'fight clubs' where they would gather to watch students brawl with one another. Fights were recorded on video and posted to

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

, as were details of upcoming fights. The police became involved and were planning additional patrols in the area. The principal, Terry Martino, called on the community to take a shared responsibility for the children's behavior. In 2016 the school year commenced with 49 suspensions handed out to students in the first three weeks. In March of the same year a teacher was assaulted by a student, the teacher escaped serious injury and the student was suspended. Just a day after the opening of the new English, Maths and HASS buildings, they were vandalised, smashing windows and causing other significant damage to the buildings. This incident forced the school to be closed for a day for repairs so that it was safe for students and staff members to return.

References

External links

Kalgoorlie-Boulder Community High School website
{{Authority control Public high schools in Western Australia 2006 establishments in Australia Educational institutions established in 2006 Boarding schools in Western Australia City of Kalgoorlie–Boulder

History

Enrolment

Incidents

See also

References

External links