Mountains Christian Academy

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Mountains Christian Academy (MCA) was a small private school attached to a church community in Blackheath, New South Wales, Australia known as the Covenant Evangelical Church. This church was founded by Howard Carter (Evangelist) in the mid-1980's, and the school was started to educate the children of the church. It originally began as a High School and eventually included Kindergarten and Primary when there were enough children. It followed an education system known as Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), which came from the United States of America. MCA was one of the first schools in Australia to implement this system of schooling.

1 Curriculum
2 School life
3 Uniform and dress
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Curriculum

Under the ACE system students were placed in cubicles for most of their learning each day and progressed through booklets on each unit of work known as "paces". This school did not necessarily have teachers but operated with supervisors and monitors. Most, if not all, of the supervisors were parents of students in the school or members of the church community. The monitors were generally female and mothers of students in the school. There were some group teaching sessions in the afternoons which included subjects such as Written Expression, Biology, Sport and Art. There were also electives such as Cake Decorating, Cooking and Flower arranging for the girls, and Woodwork or Metalwork for the boys. There were some drama classes but these were generally just rehearsals working up to the annual school concert, usually a musical involving Psalty the Singing Song Book, Ants'hillvania, or the Good Samaritan.

[edit] School life

The school was divided into three teams who competed for points during the year. These were known as Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth, named after the three explorers Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth, who were pioneers and explorers and are known for discovering the Blue Mountains area. The team colours were respectively yellow, red and blue. The teams competed against each other in in-school sports carnivals and other activities such as marching competitions which involved the entire team, all ages. The school also participated in school carnivals against a sister school known as Wahroonga Christian Academy, which often involved the billetting of students amongst the CEC families as the carnival usually lasted more than one day. Being in teams included sitting at tables during lunch periods with members of the team, and care pairs. Care pairs consisted of an older student or high school student who was matched with a primary or kindy student, and generally acted as a "big brother" toward them. Sometimes the care pairs were more of a "care trio", three students of differing ages put together.

[edit] Uniform and dress

MCA had very high standards of dress and cleanliness. Regular inspections were carried out and things such as hair and fringe length, nail length, skirt length and shoe shine were inspected. Some rules included that a fringe may be no longer than halfway down your forehead. If a girls hair was longer than shoulder length, it had to be completely tied back. Boys had to have short hair at all times; just touching the collar was as long as permitted. Girls had to kneel at each inspection to make sure dress length was appropriate ie. just touching the ground while kneeling and definitely no shorter. No jewellery of any kind, nail polish or makeup was permitted. The summer school uniform for girls consisted of an a-line sleeveless pinafore dress with a front zip and collar, made out of a navy/light blue/white vertical stripe material, with a red cardigan and brown shoes with white socks. It was optional to wear a long sleeved white blouse under the dress. The winter uniform was the same dress in navy with a white skivvy underneath, or a white blouse with a red necktie. Brown ribbed stockings were worn instead of white socks. Seniors were permitted to wear non-ribbed stockings, and they also wore an a-line pleated dark-blue skirt all year round. Boys wore navy pants, navy cardigan, blue shirt, school tie and black shoes. Senior boys wore a white shirt

MCA closed in 1988 when the Covenant Evangelical Church and the Logos Foundation (Australia) (the CEC’s political and educational arm) headquarters moved to Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia.