Nossal High ready

By Jade Lawton
Berwick’s select-entry school, christened Nossal High School last Monday, will welcome its first intake of 200 Year 9 students in 2010.
Parents flocked to Monash University’s Berwick Campus, where the school is being built, for the latest information on the school – the first select-entry school to be built in Victoria since Melbourne High School and MacRobertson High School split in 1927.
The principals of MacRobertson and Melbourne high schools, Jane Garvey and Jeremy Ludwyke, were present to praise the select-entry model.
“The select-entry exam is a centralised process, a common exam that will provide means of entry for all three select-entry schools,” Ms Garvey said.
“Students will be examined in their verbal and numerical reasoning, mathematics, reading comprehension and analytical and creative expression – but the exam is designed to test the potential capacity of students.”
Under the model, 85 per cent of students are selected on the basis of their exam score, 10 per cent are students from disadvantaged backgrounds selected on equity considerations, and five percent are admitted at the principal’s discretion.
There is a ‘five per cent rule’ which ensures no more than five per cent of any school’s Year 8 population can be admitted to a select-entry school.
Mr Ludwyke said clustering gifted students together was to students’ academic and social advantage.
“Some students face peer-pressure to moderate their performances at non-selective schools,” he said.
“We offer a breadth of programs, from Bollywood to Breakdancing. It is common for the highly academic student to have another ability or interest, such as sport, music or social awareness.”
Nossal High School’s principal, Roger Page, said the school would forge strong links with Monash University and Chisholm TAFE.
“This is unique – we are designing a purpose-built adult learning environment,” he said.
Construction on the six-hectare site is being completed in two stages, with the academic classrooms and staff areas to be finished next year.
Stage two, a 250-seat lecture theatre and gym, will be finished in November 2010.
“We hope to have a strong community presence. The University has been very generous and are very keen to have that sort of link.”
Mr Page said the phone was already running hot with teachers interested in applying for positions at Nossal.
Applications to sit for the select-entry exam close 29 May.