Westfields Sports High School

Westfields Sports High School is a dedicated sports high school in Fairfield West, a western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The school has a selective approach to enrolment, with students needing to either live within the relatively small catchment area of the school, or demonstrate their ability in some sport. The school is very well regarded for having produced sporting talent in a number of different areas of sporting endeavour, and has received a range of grants to support its work with sporting talent.HistoryThe school was established in 1963 and opened by Edward Gough Whitlam, later Australian Prime Minister. Its first year enrolment had 300 students. The school achieved moderate success during the '60s to '80s in sports and was on the rise during the late '80s. The founding principal, Philip Tucker, had wanted to establish Westfields as a school that could provide any sports person who attended a pathway to the Australian Institute of Sport, and extend their possibilities past high school level sports competition. The school was then officially declared a sports school on 24 April 1991. Its motto is Fortitudo - Endurance and Perseverance.Since 1997, there has been an annual student and teacher exchange scheme with Kasukabe High School, from Kasukabe, Saitama, Japan.