Where will your children go to high school?

At the HSC Q & A night, a survey was launched to establish parental attitudes and intentions regarding current secondary education options available to the greater Coburg community (including Coburg and West Preston).

The survey was availble to complete at the Q & A night and then online. In total, 265 surveys were returned, covering 535 school age children. While the survey is by no means exhaustive, the main results are so strong that HSC believe it serves as an indicator of parental attitudes and highlights the very difficult choices that parents in Coburg and West Preston need to make regarding their childrens secondary education.

Click through below to read, download or email this survey.

High School for Coburg Survey Report October 2009

At the end of the survey, you can read what parents wrote in response to the open ended questions, giving a real insight into what people are thinking.

What are your thoughts? 

Where will your children go to high school?

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Emails to the education department

So we can strengthen our case for a new local secondary school,  HSC asked the Education department for some extra statistics. The email below was sent on 14 October 2009.

Dear Krys and Peter,

Thank you again for your time and attention at the meeting with Christine Campbell MP, Moreland council, Coburg primary and HSC.
I am writing on behalf of HSC to formally request the release of the following documents to HSC .

1) Provision Plan for the Coburg community ( As referred to in Bronwyn Pike MP's letter 26 May 2009, scanned copy available if necessary)
2) Enrolment data for Coburg SLA primary schools, West Preston schools-namely Bell, Newlands and Preston West and Brunswick East primary.
3) Exit data from the same schools showing which high schools the year 6 students have gone to.
4) When completed, the postcode analysis of the schools above which we thank you for agreeing to undertake .

At an earlier meeting with HSC you stated that the onus is on HSC to make the case for a high school for Coburg and as such we require access to the above data.
Information HSC have recently obtained and are able to offer the department in order to assist you in determining local community educational needs includes:

• Catholic primary enrolment data and exit figures for Catholic grade 6 entering state high schools in 2009 West Preston population data.
• Once released -The HSC survey including comprehensive verbatim responses from parents representing 556 children .

We respectfully ask that you please reply within a week acknowledging receipt of this request and that the data above (excluding the post code analysis) be made available by the end of October .

 Kind Regards

Cate Hall
HSC

On the same day we received this reply

Hi Cate

Due to current urgent projects currently being undertaken at the regional and school levels we are not able to provide information to meet your requested timelines.

Will provide when time permits

Peter Enright

On 15 October 2009, we responded as follows...

Hi Peter


Thanks for your quick reply.

I do understand that you must be very busy with the with the re-branding ,stimulus spending etc etc.

In the meantime could we please have the data that is easily accessable and emailable?

By this I mean:

Exit data showing which high schools year 6 are going to in 2010 for Coburg SLA, West Preston and Brunswick East. Krys said this data would be ready for the HSC/dept. meeting 17 Aug but we didn't get around to discussing it as the main topics ended up being enrolments and population data.

Primary school enrolment data and projections for Coburg SLA plus West Preston and Brunswick East. These I presume are also easy to email as they appeared to be on a printout at our last two meetings

You may not have this data for the Bell and Preston West primaries yet but you do have the other West Preston school -Newlands.

So we will gladly take what you have at this stage.

Thanks again.

Regards
Cate Hall

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The numbers stack up so where is the planning for a High School for Coburg?

by Darren Saffin
The suburbs of Coburg and Coburg North meet the new Precinct Structure Plan guidelines for outer suburban developments announced by The Hon Minister for Planning Justin Madden MP.*

The suburbs have a combined population of over 30,800 (2006 ABS Census) not to mention the other suburbs in any new state secondary school catchment zone. The obvious difference is Coburg is not an outer suburban development, but Coburg has the greatest population growth in children of all suburbs in Moreland (iD Forecast population projections) and has the Coburg Initiative, Pentridge Prison development and old Kodak factory site development. All of which mean the continued growth of secondary school age children and a very real lack of local community options for secondary school education – an education blackhole.

Public consultation has begun for the development of the former Maribyrnong Defence Site, which Justin Madden has already said will contain schools. Meanwhile in Alphington, the Government is set to negotiate with developers to buy land to build a local government secondary school. These are both commendable actions. Where is the same consideration for Coburg and surrounds which have a great need already and more growth forecast? It is hard not to be cynical with a state election coming up and seeing the safest Labour seat in Melbourne being neglected while vote buying happens around it.

*The new Precinct Structure Plan guidelines for outer suburban developments state that for populations up to 30,000 the plan should provide space for a government secondary school. See Growth Areas Authority - Part Two - Page 31 - Key Principles for Designing Integrated Community Facilities.

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City of Moreland birthrates continue to rise

Moreland Birth rates went up again in this last financial year by 1.2% (from 2008). According to Robyn Mitchell at the City of Moreland,

This means birth rates have increased by 21.35% since 2001. Talking to other municipalities around Melbourne it seems this has been a bit of a trend - and if that is the case, it means the ability of surrounding municipalities to take Moreland's high school overflow is going to be severely compromised.

According to the  Department of Planning and Community Development (DPCD) "Suburbs in time " for Coburg, in 2006, 0-4 yr olds were almost back at the level they were in the 1980's when there were many more schools in the area. As shown below, births have continued to rise since 2006 with Coburg having highest birth rate in Moreland.





There has also been a big increase in tertiary educated residents, these in large part are the families who do not want to have to migrate out due to the lack of a state secondary school (as has been the pattern in these parts to date) because they value this community. There has also been a decrease in families who would classify themselves as religious, leading to increase in demand for state education.

Large numbers of young people in Coburg Statistical Local Area (SLA) are hard to refute now given the similarity between Moreland's ID projections and the DPCD projections.West Preston numbers can be added to the Coburg SLA numbers for the full picture.

West Preston by Census Collection Districts, drawn from Australian Bureau of Statistics CDATA.

Age Group	Males	Females	Total
0-4 years	687	647	1334
5-9 years	587	496	1083
10-14 years	505	460	965
15-19 years	499	480	979
0-19 years	2965	2083	4361

The Education Department count Newlands Primary which is actually in West Preston but not Bell Primary or Preston West. HSC argue strongly for these to be included in any analysis of the need for a high school in Coburg. Furthermore if Newlands Primary is included then the population of the suburb surrounding should also be taken in to account in demographic analysis, not just the portion attending from Moreland. Conversely, the Darebin schools mentioned above are attended by many Coburg children so should be included in school enrolment data being considered regarding the need for a high school in Coburg.

The need and demand for a quality state open entry high school for the local community which is the Coburg SLA plus West Preston is here now and will definitely be sustained into the future.

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