A Kingfisher Story

ABOUT US

For millennia, Sacred Kingfishers (todiramphus sanctus) have migrated between Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Pacific Islands and southern Australia including the forests and creeks (Merri Creek and Darebin Creek) where Preston High School is located. 

From the early 1900s as urbanisation, industry and pollution began to degrade the environment around Melbourne. The deforested and polluted creeks no longer provided a habitat for them to thrive, and by the end of the 1960s the Kingfishers had stopped coming.

During the 1970s and 80s, environmental movements in our local area started investing in cleaning up the creeks, planting native vegetation, and controlling industrial pollutants. As the trees grew and the waters cleared, the environment improved and, in 1993 a Sacred Kingfisher was spotted on the Merri Creek for the first time in decades. 

The story of the Kingfisher reflects our school’s story. In 1928 a high school was opened on the site where Preston High School now stands. Our red-brick Heritage Building is a remnant of that original school. Over time, from a thriving post-war era, the old Preston Girls School declined and eventually closed in 2013 with insufficient enrolments.

Around 2015, a group of local people decided that they wanted to ensure there was a great secondary school for their children. A local school for local kids. The group ‘High School for Preston’ was formed to lobby government, ultimately successfully, to open a new Preston High School.

In July 2018 a new Principal was appointed and in 2019 our new school opened and has thrived, becoming the fastest growing school in Victoria by 2024 while only enrolling students from within the school zone.

Our school story mirrors that of the Kingfisher. We have created an environment where young people thrive, and the community has great confidence in what we do.

Students led in defining our collective identity as the Kingfishers. Everything that we do as a collective, we do as Kingfishers!