Gladstone Park Secondary College is a public state school in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, founded in 1975.

Introduction

The school has around 1500 students, a figure which has remained roughly constant for over a decade. When it first opened, Gladstone Park Secondary School (GPSC) quickly became the largest school in terms of matriculated students within a 10 km radius, a position which it still holds today. Its uniforms were brown and gold up until the early 1990s, when the school council introduced a uniform consisting of a white polo shirt with a green logo and grey cotton shorts in summer for boys and a green chequered dress for girls. The winter uniform consists of grey cotton pants and a green cotton jumper

Sweater

A sweater, jumper, pullover, sweatshirt, jersey or guernsey is a garment intended to cover the torso and arms. It is often worn over a shirt, blouse, T-shirt, or other top, but may also be worn alone as a top...

 with a yellow emblem for both boys and girls. Year 12s traditionally wore a dark blue jumper

Sweater

A sweater, jumper, pullover, sweatshirt, jersey or guernsey is a garment intended to cover the torso and arms. It is often worn over a shirt, blouse, T-shirt, or other top, but may also be worn alone as a top...

 with classmates' names in printed in white on the front and back. In 2009 the blue was changed to black. Since 2010 each year has had a unique design.

School life

While achieving similar Year 7 results in NAPLAN with schools across Victoria, Gladstone Park's Year 9 testing results for reading, grammar and numeracy are below state average.

The school has a special disability

Disability

A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...

 partnership with the local TAFE institutes, where most GPSC graduates enroll to do apprenticeship

Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...

s or diploma

Diploma

A diploma is a certificate or deed issued by an educational institution, such as a university, that testifies that the recipient has successfully completed a particular course of study or confers an academic degree. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the word diploma refers to...

s.

The school also has available to its students positions such as Peer support leaders and Captaincy in areas like college houses and also school captains.

The college allows for students to be elected at year 12 to become representatives of the school taking on the position of school captain.

Facilities

The school contains many facilities for students and the local community. The school grounds contain many sports facilities including a football and soccer oval, outdoor basketball and netball courts, cricket nets and an outdoor hockey/ futsal pitch. There is an indoor sports centre with two basketball courts, squash courts and gym facilities. The school library is open to students and the public.