Adelaide High School
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| Adelaide High School | |
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| Non scholae sed vitae (Not only for school, but for life) |
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| Established | 1908 |
| School type | Public |
| Principal/ Headmaster |
Stephen Dowdy |
| Location | Adelaide, South Australia, Australia |
| Campus | Urban |
| Enrollment | Approximately 1200 |
| School colours | Black and White |
| Homepage | http://www.adelaidehs.sa.edu.au/ |
Adelaide High School is a coeducational state school situated on the corner of West Terrace and Glover Avenue in the Adelaide Parklands. It is considered to be one of South Australia's most prestigious public (i.e., state) schools and has a proud history. It was Adelaide's first State High School and was the first free High School in South Australia. It now has an enrollment of approximately 1,200 students, who come from different cultural and religious backgrounds.
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[edit] History
Adelaide High School was established in 1908 and was officially opened on September 24 by the premier. It was South Australia’s first free high school. In 2008, the school with celebrate its centenary. The building is heritage listed.[citation needed]
It started off as two schools, with a boys and a girls campus; though these combined in 1908. In 1927 it had an enrolment of 1,067, making it the largest school of its kind in the Commonwealth. By 1929 the school occupied two sites - one at Grote Street (now a Winery Centre) and another at Currie Street (now part of the Remand Centre).
The current site of the school on West Terrace was originally set aside for an army barracks in 1849, but an Observatory was built instead in 1859. This became the Bureau of Meteorology in 1939. This was demolished before work finally commenced on the new school in 1947. It has remained there ever since and that building is now heritage listed.
Adelaide is part of the longest running sporting exchanges with Melbourne High School and MacRobertson Girls High School, both in Melbourne. It competes in the Prefects Cup with Melbourne High, which Melbourne High normally wins and won easily in 2006.
[edit] Curriculum
Adelaide High School is especially known for being a Special Interest Language School. It offers its students a selection of 7 different languages to study, which include Modern Greek, Chinese Mandarin, Japanese, Italian, French, Spanish and German. The school is also a Centre for the Hearing Impaired and as an Associate School for Students of High Intellectual Potential.
[edit] Languages
Adelaide High School is a Special Interest Language School. Adelaide High School is currently a sister school to Asahi High School in Osaka, Japan, IT IS in Biella, Italy, No. 3 Middle School Nankai, Chongqing, China, Greensward College in Essex, UK and 7th Gymnasio Junior High in Ioannina, Greece. Every year there is an annual visit to Adelaide High by students from Asahi High School.
[edit] Sport
The school has four House teams when it comes to sporting events in the school. The Houses take the names of past principals of the school. The house names are, Adey (Red), Maghey (Blue), Morriss (Green), and West (Yellow). Sporting events include the school swimming carnival and sports day.
Adelaide High has taken part in a sporting exchange with MacRobertson Girls High School and Melbourne Boys High School since 1910 and it is the longest running sporting exchange in the state. It is held in early Term 3 and one year the boys are in the Melbourne and the girls are in Adelaide and then the next year they swap. There are competitions in many sports such as: football, soccer, tennis, rowing, basketball, netball, softball, chess, debating, theatre sports, volleyball and cross country.
[edit] Building
The school building has a most unusual and irregular shape. Viewed from above, the shape is roughly the shape of an 'E' with its back curved in an arc. Coupled with porthole-like windows in the stairwells, the building has the appearance of a grounded ship, with its seemingly random protrusions from the roof resembling chimneys. While such a design may be considered artistically imaginative (its architect having won an award for the design), the overall look of the building is deemed uncharacteristic of its surrounds and of Adelaide.
[edit] Facilities
Facilities that students at the school have access to include a resource centre, gymnasium, weights room, tennis, basketball and netball courts, performing arts centre, science labs and lecture theatres. The school also has a boatshed on the bank of the River Torrens which holds the schools many rowing boats and where the school’s rowing crews train.
[edit] Notable staff and students
- Evan Christou, left mathematics teaching in 1984 to found Pizza Haven with his brothers Louis, Bill and Gabriel.
- Simon Lewicki aka Groove Terminator, electronic music artist.
- Sir Marcus 'Mark' Laurence Elwin Oliphant, Australian physicist and humanitarian.
- Lou Vincent New Zealand Test cricketer, AHS student 1993-96,
