From truant to trailblazer, Frankston High goes to the top of the class

Academic success was an embarrassment to students at Frankston High School when its principal, Marion Heale, started teaching there 22 years ago.

It was uncool to achieve high marks, undesirable to play in the school band and appallingly naff to address a school assembly. Exam results for final-year students were underwhelming.

Frankston High is now a high performance secondary college, part of an exceptional group among Melbourne's 162 government schools. It is one of only 22 secondary schools to get a median ENTER above 70 from the results of its VCE students in 2000.

Ms Heale says two elements have transformed student attitudes and results: the quality of the school's leadership and its teachers. She says her predecessor, Ken Rowe, who retired last year, was an energetic, visionary man who introduced most of the changes responsible for the school's metamorphosis.

His task was made easier by reforms introduced by the former Kirner and Kennett governments, which handed over responsibility for some financial and staffing decisions from the Education Department to schools.

In Mr Rowe's 14 years as principal he revolutionised the curriculum and the way the school dealt with teachers, parents and the community.

He introduced an aggressive teacher recruitment policy by establishing close links with Monash University's teacher training department.

"We've made sure that we employ the top graduates from Monash. If we're looking for a Japanese teacher, we ring them up and ask them who their best graduate student is," Ms Heale says.

Each year, the school offers its staff four overseas professional development fellowships. It established a computer laptop program for all year 7 students, sponsored by Toshiba and a local computer business. Students unable to buy a laptop use classroom ones provided by the sponsorship deal.

A specialist music centre and a sports complex have been built using low interest loans from the Education Department and sponsorship from local businesses and an indoor swimming pool is under construction.

A separate senior campus for years 11 and 12 was established to give the older students a more adult learning environment and the younger children a more intimate setting in a junior campus.

Tony Townsend, of Monash University's faculty of education, says the secret of Frankston's success can be traced to how the school introduced a range of student programs that were not solely academic.

The programs included aviation studies, in which students learn to build an aeroplane, a hands-on learning program with strong ties to local employers for vocational training, student exchange programs to South Africa, Japan and France, a youth development program with Surf Life Saving Victoria, and an expanded music program that has seen the number of school bands grow from one to six.

"The Frankston people have been terrific at bringing all of the kids up from the bottom . . . their average lowest scores for VCE were much higher than other government schools in the state," says Professor Townsend, who was appointed by the Education Department to conduct the school's 2000 triennial review. "Ken Rowe encouraged people to believe their kids could be as good as anyone else's kids.

"He took what's best about private schools and put it into the culture of Frankston High. Parents were invited to the school and asked how the school could serve them."

Its enhanced reputation has spread along the parental grapevine. About 100 families who live outside the school's catchment zone are on a waiting list for vacancies in year 7.

During the 1990s, enrolments boomed as parents clamored to send their children to the school. By 2000, a significant proportion of the student population of about 1500 lived outside the zone. Professor Townsend says the presence of many of these families probably helped improve the school's academic performance.

Enrolments have reached 1580 and the school is almost full. Only a small number of students from outside the zone were accepted in the latest year 7 intake. Under department rules, families living within a school's catchment and a student's siblings are given first preference.

Despite the influx of outsiders, Ms Heale says the social backgrounds of most of the school's students resemble that of many government schools. About 20 of this year's 200 VCE students live in precarious financial circumstances.

Frankston High's academic success in a region with higher than average crime and unemployment rates has surprised many, including the friends of English teacher Rachael Neale, 27. Later this year, she will travel to Britain under a $4000 school fellowship to develop an online project that she and her students have established with a school near London. "I live in Glen Iris and when I tell people I teach in Frankston, they say, 'Why are you teaching there? It must be really rough.' But I wouldn't have the same opportunities elsewhere," she says.