From the Principal

As another wonderful year at Box Hill High School draws to an end…

This year we celebrated 95 years of Box Hill High School and our strong contribution to quality public education in Victoria, and there was much to celebrate this year!

Some Successes

• Celebrating 95 years of BHHS with the Historical Expo, 1930s School Day and 1930s Jazz Night in Term 3 were huge successes and allowed many alumni to return to their school and celebrate with us. The significance of the event was also recognised by local MPs, Department leaders and past Principals.

   

• Writing Growth Improvement – this year 85% of our Year 9 students achieved high growth in their NAPLAN writing results this year, with 44% being placed in the Exceeding level of overall achievement (compared to 26% in 2023). This is the result of our whole-school focus on teaching writing improvement.

   

• Our 2025 School Performance Report (DE) – BHHS was rated as HIGH in the annual Report, with strong improvement in the Wellbeing performance measures and improved Learning performance measures. We achieved well above the State Average on all measures and above similar schools.

   

• The 2025 School Production of Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play. Very impressive! We received 5 nominations in the Lyrebird Awards, winning a Judges Award for the Pop Medley in Act 2.

   

• Our Student Leaders – a huge highlight was seeing the development of so many capable and effective student leaders this year, and the number of students applying for all positions has increased. In 2025, we also had our first nomination for the Victorian Student Leadership Awards! Opportunities such as the Alpine School for Student Leadership at Year 9 have enhanced those leadership qualities in our young people too.

   

• Embedding safe and inclusive practices  - we strengthen whole-school wellbeing processes through continuing to implement consistent routines, emphasise the power of positive connections and relationships in class, had success with the implementation  of Disability Inclusion in its first year in inner east schools, published our Reconciliation Action Plan, developed a student-staff action group to address racism in conjunction with the new anti-racism policy.

   

• Continued to improve and beautify the school with new artworks, a new landscaped fern garden and seating space in the Quad, accessibility works, and upgrades to technology.

Wishing all our Year 12s a prosperous future!

Congratulations to the Class of 2025! We had a lovely night celebrating their achievement on completing 13 years of school at the Valedictory Dinner on Friday 21 November at the Caulfield Racecourse.

We are proud of all our VCE and VCE Vocational Major students and the way they all worked together in a collaborative and positive manner all year to achieve their best. They were always respectful to their teachers and each other. Each of our students is unique and will have their own paths in life that we hope are fulfilling. There are so many stories behind the scores that deserve to be recognised as there is often success in completing Year 12 despite many personal challenges along the way. The diverse qualities and strengths that students demonstrate are actually far more important than a score, and attributes such as perseverance, passion, emotional intelligence, and social skills are so much more valuable for a good life.

I hope that our departing students find ways to contribute to their communities and find a 

life of purpose that fulfills them.

2025 VCE results

We also want to acknowledge and celebrate those students who achieved excellent results in their studies due to their focus and hard work this year. Our results across all subjects continue to be strong.

Our DUX for 2025 was Brice Cao who achieved the impressive 99.75 ATAR. Congratulations Brice! 

There were also another four students who achieved over 99 in their ATAR and were ranked in the top 1% in the state.

Summary of results:

• All study score mean - 32
• All study score median - 32
• English study score median - 33
• Three perfect Study Scores of 50 - Maths Methods, Psychology, and VCD
• % study scores 40 and above – 11% of our students
• % study scores above 37 - 20% of our students
• Median ATAR - 83
• 15% of our students achieved ATARs over 95, 
• 30% of our students achieved ATARs over 9, 
• 56% of our students achieved over 80% in their ATAR, 74% over 70)

The Kate Mitchell Music and Performing Arts Centre

Last week we publicly recognised the exceptional leadership of our first female principal, Ms. Kate Mitchell by officially naming our music and performing arts centre after her. The idea to recognise her contribution to the school started with our 2025 school captain Amiya Cameron who was inspired by the Put Her Name On It advocacy group who seek to address the gender imbalance of public landmark names (who presented at the Whitehorse International Women’s Day Breakfast that we attended earlier this year). Kate was very touched by the public acknowledgement, and it was a joyous occasion. Thank-you to our talented student musicians who also performed – Le B, Mina C, Jasmine Y and Jammie C.

Staff leaving in 2025

We say goodbye to some of our staff at the end of the year who are retiring, who are leaving to pursue other things or their contracts come to an end:

Thank-you to our retiring staff for your many years of service:

• Steve Perry – Solar Car Program
• Kelly Alberico – Admin Educational Support Staff
• Fay Asadi – Science Lab Tech Assistant

Other staff leaving at the end of the year:

• Rochelle D’Cruz – EAL teacher and tutor
• Emmalene Clarkson – Psychology teacher and Momentum Program Coordinator
• Hayley Murphy – HPE teacher and Sport Carnival Coordinator
• Emma Ren – Psychology teacher
• Yuna Gu – Math teacher
• Jenny Banks – Careers admin support

Thank you to School Council

A sincere thank you to the 2025 School Council Members - especially to our School Council President Kajaal Fox and Vice-President Muhammad Ali, Ashley Schwartz (Finance Parent Representative), and to Shweta Pradhan, Hayley Firinauskis, Pooja Kumar, Rodney Mudford, Elizabeth Tischler, Thomas Williams and Minnie Zeng (DET representatives), and student members Taj O’Donnell and Abby Loie.

Thank you to Staff

I would like to publicly thank all my passionate and professional team of leaders, teachers and educational support staff at Box Hill High School for your exceptional contributions to student learning and wellbeing outcomes. 

Together we make a Box Hill High School a safe, supportive and stimulating environment in which to learn, grow and create. Have a safe and restful summer break!

Season’s Greetings and Happy School Holidays

On behalf of the school, I wish all our families a safe and enjoyable summer break and hope that our students have opportunities to get bored, get creative and have adventures – whether it is at the beach, with family and friends, playing sport, reading books, making things, going on walks, watching movies, being in nature, making some personal improvement goals or just daydreaming! 

Looking forward to another fabulous year of learning and connection in 2026!