Brisbane State High School

Brisbane State High School (BSHS or often commonly State High) is a partially selective, co-educational, state secondary school, located in South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is a member of the Great Public Schools' Association of Queensland, and the Queensland Girls' Secondary Schools Sports Association. With an average year level cohort of above or around 500 students, it was the first state secondary school established in Brisbane, as well as the first academic state high school to be founded in Queensland. The school employs a variety of selection criteria for prospective students, maintaining a quota for local area enrolments, however also using academic, sporting, cultural and artistic talents as means of determining the annual intake.

History

T. Max Hawkins, historian and author of "The Queensland Great Public Schools – A History", wrote of the origins of Brisbane State High School, that:

"The school developed from the School of Arts in Ann Street, and later from the old Normal School which was built by convict labour on the site where the State Government Insurance building now stands...The year 1913 is generally taken as the start of the Brisbane State High School, a co-educational school which, by 1964, had expanded to accommodate 1310 students, 891 of them boys."