Parkwood Secondary College (PSC) was a

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

located in the

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

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suburb of Ringwood North. The school was founded in 1979 as ''Parkwood High School'', and closed at the end of the 2012 school year. In 2014, the land and buildings were re-opened as the North Ringwood Community House. The school provided high school education for Years 7 through 12, with Year 11 and 12 students undertaking the

Victorian Certificate of Education The Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) is the credential available to secondary school students who successfully complete year 10, 11 and 12 in the Australian state of Victoria (state), Victoria as well as in some international schools i ...

. It formerly offered a range of VCE subjects as well as the

Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning The Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) was a 'hands-on' program for students in Years 10, 11 and 12 that was available from 2002 to 2023. It has now been superseded by the VCE Vocational Major and the Victorian Pathways Certificate. T ...

program.

Proposed merger

In 2008, the then Labor state government announced a $100 million pledge to seven Victorian secondary schools. This resulted in cursory plans in 2009 to merge Parkwood Secondary College with the nearby

Norwood Secondary College Norwood Secondary College is a secondary school located in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, situated in Ringwood, Victoria, Australia and right next to Mullum Primary School. Norwood Secondary College, in the City of Maroondah, is a single campus co ...

. Several years passed with no action, and after a change in government, the community was uncertain whether the new Liberal government would continue the plan to merge the schools. On 1 March 2012, the principal Barbara Laidlaw announced that the merger would not proceed, stating that the school had "a strong and dynamic future".

Closure

On 30 July 2012, the school council of Parkwood Secondary College announced its intention to close the school at the end of the year due to falling enrollments. This announcement came five months after the confirmation that Parkwood would continue indefinitely. In its final year of operation, there were 306 students enrolled at the school. After the closure, many of the college's students moved to either

or the newly merged Melba College. Some students of the school posted pictures, videos, and messages on a Facebook page in its memory.

Current use of site

In October 2013, Maroondah City Council announced its intention to re-open the site of Parkwood Secondary College as a Community House and

Men's Shed Men's sheds or community sheds are non-profit local organisations that provide a space for craftwork and social interaction. The movement originated in Australia around the 1980s as a way to improve the health and wellbeing of older men. Howev ...

. The site had been dormant for nearly 2 years and had become a target of vandals, so significant works were undertaken including the removal of graffiti and vandalism. Since its re-opening in 2014, the site now serves as th
North Ringwood Community House
which was previously located at the rear of the Holy Spirit Primary School in Ringwood North.

References

External links

* *{{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120221092721/http://mec.vic.edu.au/ , date=21 February 2012 , , title=Maroondah Education Coalition
Photograph of Parkwood High School, 1981North Ringwood Community House
Educational institutions established in 1979 Educational institutions disestablished in 2012 Secondary schools in Melbourne Buildings and structures in the City of Maroondah 1979 establishments in Australia 2012 disestablishments in Australia