Maitland High School (abbreviated as MHS) is a government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school, located on High Street, East Maitland, in the Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia. Established in 1884 as the boys only single-sex Maitland Boys' High School, in 1986 the school collaborated with Maitland Girls' High School, and now both schools are co-educational, with Maitland Boys' High School renamed as Maitland High School, and Maitland Girls' High School enamel as Maitland Grossmann High School. Maitland High School enrolled approximately 960 students in 2018, from Year 7 to Year 12, of whom 15 percent identified as Indigenous Australians and five percent were from a language background other than English. The school is operated by the NSW Department of Education. Overview In 2009, the efforts of the school were recognised by the Department of Education & Training a school achievement award citing the "consistent excellence in Vocational educational program delivery and quality Higher School Certificate educational outcomes". The school has adopted the colours of black and white, two of the northern region's three representative colours (black, white, red), and its mascot of a magpie, a popular and prolific bird of the area. The Maitland High Old Boys and Ex-students Union regularly assists the school with donations and scholarships for students. The school offers a number of vocational education courses in Year 10 to Year 12 relating to various industries, such as hospitality, retail and community services. History The Public Instruction Act 1880 (New South Wales) began a period described as the "great reforms". In 1883 the first six state high schools were opened: for boys and for girls at Sydney, Bathurst and Goulburn. The following year, in 1884, Maitland Boys High and Girls High were opened. The four schools at Sydney and Maitland succeeded but the other High Schools failed to compete with established local private schools and the Superior Public Schools (which did not prepare students for matriculation); at the end of 1886, the two Goulburn schools and Bathurst Boys' High School closed. By 1885, the Minister of Public Instruction could report that Maitland Boys' High School had an average quarterly enrolment of 48 boys and in 1890, 45 (by comparison, Sydney Boys' High had 183 (1885) and 250 (1890); Maitland Girls' High had 15 (1885) and 36 (1890)). Since the High Schools were to prepare students for matriculation, "the University Manual of Public Examinations provided the