Hurlstone Agricultural High School

Hurlstone Agricultural High School (abbreviated HAHS) is a selective agricultural school for years 7 to 12 in Glenfield, the oldest of its type in New South Wales. The 1.2 km² campus is dominated by its operational farm and includes extensive sporting facilities and student accommodation.

History

The school was established for boys-only in 1907 in Hurlstone Park, approximately ten kilometres south west of Sydney. In the 1920s it moved to its present site in Glenfield, approximately 42km south west of Sydney and by the Main Southern Railway. The school supported government policy to promote productivity in the agricultural sector through the training of boys in all aspects of agricultural sciences and farm management.

For a brief period in the 1940s, it was known as Macarthur Agricultural High School, in honour of woolgrower John Macarthur. However, the name soon reverted to its previous name.

Female students were first admitted to Hurlstone Agricultural High School in 1978.

Population

Enrolment in the school is dependent on examinations of Year Six students from across the state. The school maintains high academic standards and is constistantly listed in the top twenty NSW high schools in terms of HSC marks.

The student population of approximately 930 is divided between boarder students, who reside on the school grounds, and day students, who commute from south western Sydney and are jokingly referred to as daygoes. Students in the most junior year are called plebs. For sporting and accommodation purposes the school is divided into four houses: Farrer, Macarthur, Wentworth and Lachlan.

Traditions

The school motto is Pro Patria in Latin which means For My Country. The school magazine is Harvester. Annually, the school organises a Country Fair, involving student families across the state.

Famous Students

The school multi-purpose centre is named after John Hurst Edmondson who received the Victoria Cross for his gallantry during the Second World War

Brothers Andrew and Michael Tierney teamed up with fellow students Phillip Burton and Toby Allen to eventually form the popular singing group Human Nature.

Other students became well-known parliamentarians including John Kerin (Minister for Primary Industries, 1983-1991 and Federal Treasurer, 1991) and Mark Latham (Opposition Leader 2004-2005).

The former Commmissioner of the New South Wales Police, James Travers Lees was also a student at the school.

NodeWorks boosts web surfing!

Page Returned in 0.402 seconds - HTML Compressed 67.3%

This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.