Mount Waverley Secondary College
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Mount Waverley Secondary College | |
| "Learn to live and live to learn." | |
| Established | 1964 |
| School type | Government |
| Principal/Headmaster | Glenn Proctor |
| Location | Mount Waverley, Victoria, Australia |
| Campuses | Junior School, Middle/Senior School |
| Enrollment | 1800 |
| School colours | Green, Gold/Yellow, Navy Blue (VCE) |
| Homepage | www.mwsc.vic.edu.au |
Mount Waverley Secondary College is a state school in Melbourne, Australia. It consists of junior (years 7/8) and senior (years 9-12) campuses at the top and bottom of a hill, respectively.
The campuses are situated in Mount Waverley, a suburb of Melbourne which is east of the city centre. The school emblem is a Unicorn standing on its hind legs. The colours green and gold are reflected in the uniform; VCE students (years 11 and 12) wear navy jumpers and jackets.
Contents |
[edit] History
The school opened in 1967 on Stephensons Road. In the early 90s the school merged with Waverley High School on Waverley Road to form the college across two campuses.
Between the summer holidays of 1994-1995, the Waverley Road Site's Canteen burnt down, rumoured among students to be at the arson of students notorious at the school for property damage, as during the previous year a group of students had smashed around fifty window panes along an entire side of one of the site's buildings.
In 1996 the Stephensons Road site became the senior campus and the Waverley Road site became the junior campus (years 7 and 8).
Later that year, the Waverley Road site was closed, to become a housing estate, and the junior school moved to the rebuilt and extended old campus of Waverley North Primary School, also on Stephensons Road.
In January 2003, a large portion of the senior campus was burnt down, suspected by some to have been a possible arson attempt by a student. Reconstruction has attempted to provide more material facilities than prior to the incident.
[edit] Curriculum
Toward the end of 1998, a number of VCE Arts units including Media Studies were removed from the school's curriculum, a number of students enrolled in Media Studies Units 1 and 2 completed their second year of VCE at another school that year. In 2004 three Mount Waverley students got study scores of 50 in Media Studies.
Mount Waverley Secondary College has an ongoing relationship with "sister schools" in Germany and Japan, as a designated provider of International Education for fee paying students, with the schools setting up tours and exchanges. The school runs a Study tour to Japan every 2 years, usually in September, where they visit such places as Tokyo (including Tokyo Disneyland), Hakone, Miyajima, Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Osaka where they visit their sister school; Osaka Minami Senior High.
The school's history curriculum covers the Second World War briefly in year 10 history. Focus on this era leaned heavily toward Soviet activity throughout the period.
Recent issues of the school's newsletter "Airwaves" identifies extra-curricular activities in the spirit of student participation have included a "Knock Em Down stall" and a "Test Your Strength machine" which were accompanied by a "dunking pool" (with proceeds donated to tsunami victims)as well as coordinating lunchtime competitions and providing opportunities for the establishment of clubs of "various sorts."
The School's current "CHARTER 2004 - 2006" includes: "Mount Waverley Secondary College aims to contribute to all students learning how to think not what to think, to support life long learning and the attainment of excellence."
[edit] Sport
Within the school, there are six houses: Bradman (Green), Cuthbert (Yellow), Fraser (Light Blue), Goolagong (Purple), Landy (Red) and Whitten (Navy Blue). Each student is placed into a certain house. MWSC participates in a number of inter-school sports, including swimming, soccer, hockey, basketball etc.
[edit] Facilities
MWSC is spread over two campuses. The Junior School (7-8) and the Middle Senior School (9-12). The Junior School has three blocks: A, B and C (double storey). A Block containing offices, staff rooms and administration as well as MWSC's Lego Lab. B Block features a Home Ecomonics classroom, the Junior School music centre and room, drama room and the main staff room. C Block has three fully equipped science laboratories downstairs, a textiles and art/ceramics room and three Information Technology Classrooms. All three blocks have general puprpose classrooms. The JS canteen is located undernteath the Art/Ceramics room. ....
[edit] Extra-Curricular Religious Affiliations
Mount Waverley Secondary College from as early as 1993 up to present-day 2005 willingly accepts assistance for extra-curricular activities from active members of Christian organisations in their overt capacity, according to Airwaves and past student's experience. Such activities have included assistance in lunchtime charity events (2005) from members of the Syndal Baptist Church - credited in the Airwaves newspaper with published inclusion of their religious affiliation.
At the former Waverley Road Site (1993-1995), members from an Evangelical Christian religious youth outreach program were permitted to use classroom facilities weekly during lunchtimes for a voluntary student activity open to the entire student body. The activity ran under the name "Student Focus". Activities included students participating in general knowledge quizzes thus rewarded with confectionary, interspersed with periods of subjective commentary and religious quotation, exclusively, of the New Testament. The school did not require permission or consent from parent/guardian for a student to participate due to the fact that it was similar to any other extra-curicular activity and though it was run by members of a religious outreach program, it would be no different if it were run purely by the students, for the students. The program's religious education content was, arguably, not overtly represented in its "Student Focus" title. The religious instruction component was held over as a segueway well into the session's duration. Students would have to participate at least once to find out religious education was involved.
Also at the former W.R.S. circa 1994/1995 - representatives of a religious organisation were permitted by the school to adddress the site's entire student body in assembly, in addition to handing out pocket-sized copies of the King James Version of the Bible published by the Gideons on exit from the school assembly. This is no longer done at the College.
[edit] Allegations of Sexual Discrimination - Female School Uniform
Around 1994 at the Stephensons Road Site Senior Campus an incident occurred in which Female M.W.S.C. student featured in a report on Channel 9's A Current Affair, a tabloid media television program, as the student alleged the school had discriminated against her and other female students as the school had disputed her right as a female to wear trousers as opposed to a girl's summer dress uniform or winter skirt uniform. According to A Current Affair's report, in their response to their stance in the dispute, the school had cited concerns toward girls wearing of trousers in regards to menstrual hygiene issues.
The school administration was initially insistent on enforcing its apparently discriminatory dress code. However, after the female student initiated legal proceedings, the school administration accepted that policy was discriminatory and subsequently amended its dress code to allow female students to wear trousers.
