Box Hill High School

Infobox Aust school

name = Box Hill High School


motto = "Ad Altiora Certamus"
"To The Highest Endeavour"
established = 1930
type = Public School
principal = Kate Mitchell
city = Box Hill
campus = Box Hill
enrolment = 930
state = VIC
country = Australia
colours = Blue, gold, white
homepage = [http://www.boxhillhs.vic.edu.au http://www.boxhillhs.vic.edu.au]

Box Hill High School is a co-educational public secondary school located in the eastern suburb of Box Hill in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

It provides education for years 7-12. Year 11 and 12 students undertake the VCE program. There are currently 929 students enrolled at the school, excluding Andrew Tunnecliffe.

Box Hill High School runs an "Accelerated Learning Program" for gifted students, which teaches the curriculum to these students at an accelerated rate. Box Hill was only the second public school in Victoria to introduce such a program; there are now three . Entrance to the program is selective, and determined by examinations during Grade Six. Within the program, syllabi from Years 7-10 are compacted into three years along with curriculim enrichment and extension. Year 9 students in the Accelerated Program have the option of various pathways. These pathways include a fourth year of an accelerated/extended nature, a partial Year 10 and partial VCE, and full VCE. Students who proceed to a full VCE in the fourth year may also choose to study extra units at VCE level and to complete an extended VCE taken over three years rather than the usual two.

The school also has a large Model Solar Car Program, detailed below.

Model Solar Car Competition

Overview

Box Hill High School has a reputation of consistently designing, building and eventually racing model Solar Cars at the Victorian and National levels. With production beginning in late term 1 or early term 2 the team has approximately half a year to create a fleet of vehicles (up to 12) worthy of the carrying the Box Hill High School name on their side. The program within Box Hill High School, is run with limited financial support from the school, by dedicated engineers who volunteer there time, as of 2007 there were approximately 45 students within the program. The Victorian state event, or VMSCC, is held at the ScienceWorks Museum, Spotswood, in October each year. The most successful years for Box Hill High so far have been 2005 (with 1st place, best engineered), and 2006 (with 2nd, 3rd, and best engineered) and 2007 (with 1st place, 3rd place, 2 other cars in top eight, and best engineered). The team's best performance at the national event was a 2nd place in 2003, it also brings home the best engineered design award with unnerving consistency from both the state competition and the national event.

More information can be found at:

[http://www.modelsolar-vic.net Victorian event ]

[http://www.solarnational.org National event ]

2006 event

2007 event

Box Hill entered 12 cars into the state event in 2007. It was also quite successful, with the cars 'Stitchface' and 'Blue Torp' coming 1st and 3rd respectively overall in the event, and the car 'Rising Sun' winning the prize for the best engineered car. In addition, due to a shortage of entries from other states for the National event a wild card was given to the car 'Electrical Fault'.And lastly, insofar as is possible, Andrew Tunnecliffes car "Dweezel" crashed catastrophically into a small child, causing it to explode into binary, causing all the surrounding windows to stop responding.

At the Nationals Competition held in Adelaide, the car 'Electrical Fault' placed third overall, and was also awarded the 'Best Overall Team' award.

2008 event

With the Victorian competition fast approaching on the weekend 18-19th of October, production of the new cars almost complete. The first major testing opportunity, at a public demonstration outside the Melbourne Museum in a pursuit-style race on the Tuesday 9th of September was highly successful, with Box Hill taking home the major awards. Problems were identified with some cars, which are now being fixed in preparation for the Victorian event. Some cars are already finished and in their final testing process.