History
In 1927 the East London Technical College, now the East London FET College, was established and out of that in 1968 grew the East London Technical and Commercial High School. In 1974 the school split into two – Port Rex Technical High School in Vincent and Commercial High School in Stirling on what had been the city’s horse-racing track. In January 1985 Commercial High lost its specialist commercial nature and became a mainstream school – Stirling - taking the name of the suburb and its primary school, and Stirling High School thus celebrated 38 years of existence at the end of 2022, with a lineage of 95 years.
The first Headmaster of Stirling High was Mr Peter Moore, who oversaw the evolution of the school - in his tenure of nearly twenty years - into one of the leading co-educational schools in the country. On his retirement in 2005 he was succeeded by Mr Charles Foster, who continued the school’s vision of excellence and happiness. Mr Doug Prior was appointed as Headmaster at the end of 2016.
The coat-of-arms, or badge, of Stirling High, designed by Professor Hugh Smith of Rhodes University, includes important heraldic symbols: the battlements and twin towers of Scotland’s Stirling Castle, echoed in the Border’s 19th-century frontier forts; a flaming torch as a symbol of education; green and blue as background colours to represent Stirling Primary and Commercial High, Stirling’s antecedents; green and gold to represent Stirling as the suburb for returning “Springbok” soldiers; an anchor as maritime reference to the Stirling Castle and East London as a river port; and oak and coral tree leaves to represent the trees of Scotland and South Africa.
The motto ‘Semper Fidelis’ may be translated as being ‘always faithful’, which was the motto of the Commercial High School.