History of The School
Northcote High School was established in 1926 as a co-educational secondary school, one of the first six to be established in Melbourne by the Victorian Government. The school owes its establishment largely to agitation led by John Cain (senior), Northcote City Councillor and later Member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly for Jika Jika, with support from the Principals of nearby Wales Street Primary School and Northcote Primary School. Cain's repeated efforts to establish a school to provide secondary education for the predominantly working class suburb of Northcote were finally successful, despite an environment of opposition from conservative politicians and independent principals.
Although Northcote High School was established as a coeducational school, it became a boy's school after 1928 when Preston Girls High School was established. In the 1980s Northcote High School again began to enrol girls in response to community pressure, officially moving to coeducation in 1989. In 2012 there were approximately 840 boys and 710 girls enrolled.
The school has a strong connection to the inner northern Melbourne suburbs of Fitzroy North, Clifton Hill, Brunswick East, Northcote, Thornbury, Fairfield, Preston and Reservoir with many of its students attending the school as their parents once did. A feature of Northcote High School is the numbers of staff who are former students (including two former School Captains) and others who have their own children at the school.
Northcote High School first offered a limited Maths and Science Matriculation (final year certificate) in the 1940s. Principal Alex Sutherland expanded Matriculation in the 1950s to include most subjects on the curriculum. The school continues this tradition today with a very broad range of Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) subjects on offer.
Northcote High School celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2006. It remains one of very few Victorian government secondary schools that has not significantly changed its identity through closure, reorganisation or amalgamation.
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