Scotch College, Melbourne

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Scotch College
Image:Scotch_logo-small.jpg
Motto Deo Patriae litteris
'to God, for country, and for learning'
Established 1851
Type Independent all-male primary and secondary
Chairman Mr David Crawford
Principal Dr F.G. Donaldson AM
Founder Rev. James Forbes
Chaplain Rev. Graham Bradbeer
Students 500 Junior, >1,500 Senior
Grades Prep-12
Location Hawthorn, VIC Australia
Campus Suburban
Colours Cardinal (Gold & Royal Blue)
Website www.scotch.vic.edu.au
For other schools named Scotch College, see Scotch College.

Scotch College, Melbourne is an independent school for boys located in Morrison Street, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia and is usually referred to as Scotch. The school is a member of the Associated Public Schools of Victoria.

Scotch was established in 1851 by Reverend James Forbes, of the Free Presbyterian Church, and was originally located in a house in Spring Street and known as the Melbourne Academy. Scotch is the oldest secondary school in Victoria and celebrated its sesquicentenary in 2001.

Although people may mistakenly associate Scotch with the Uniting Church, in 1977 when the majority of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and its constituent state churches participated in the forming of this new denomination, legal action was taken to try and overturn the allocation by the Property Commission of Scotch to the Presbyterian Church which continued outside the Uniting Church under the Presbyterian constitution adopted in 1901. The Property Commission decision was not overturned although Scotch was separately incorporated with a Council which is made up of three groups; Old Boys (1/3) nominated by the Old Scotch Collegians' Association, Presbyterian Church of Victoria nominees (1/3) and "members of the Scotch family" nominated by council members from associations including the Scotch Parents' Association and Scotch Foundation.

Contents

Funding

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Tuition fees range between $16,000 and just over $20,000 (P-12) for day boys. Scotch College has received criticism for receiving excessive funding from federal government sources, around $3 million per year (2005). Notably, funding for the College was compared to that provided to Glen Waverley Secondary College (a state funded school) in an Australian Labor Party television advertisement during the 2004 federal election, supporting an ALP proposal to reduce independent school funding provided by the federal government. The advertisement presented information to the effect that the independent school received substantially more funding than the state school, despite the fact that students at Scotch were already paying annual fees of "between $16,000 and $19,000 (P-12) for day boys". This advertisement, however, did not take into account State level funding for schools, or Glen Waverley's high student fee payment requests. According to nation-wide newspaper 'The Australian', Scotch College Melbourne responded legally in which an undisclosed remedy was awarded against the political party who made the advertisement. It is estimated that the school has an annual budget of $40 million (School Annual Report 2006) which included capital expenditure.

Controversy

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Scotch was also involved in a fight over the acquisition of land to widen the Citylink Tollway overpass in 2006.[citation needed] The elevated CityLink Tollway divides Scotch College and St Kevin's College. In mid-2006, Scotch lost the battle against Citylink, but will only lose minimal land which would be as wide as 5 metres along the back length of the school where the overpass currently exists and as a result will not actually touch any buildings or ovals. This is because there is an unused embankment which stretches along the freeway end of the school that is wider than the required amount of land. Citylink via the State Government will be paying for the use of the land and it is estimated that the amount may reach $1 million.

This is the third time the school had to fight for their land. The first was in the mid 1960s when the South Eastern Freeway was originally built. It was wrongly asserted that St Kevin's College lost a considerable amount of land at that time, however it was much less than Scotch College lost on this occasion. {cite needed}

Academic

Scotch is consistently ranked as one of the top performing schools academically as measured by Victorian Certificate of Education indicators.[citation needed] In 2006 it was the best performing boys' school, with a median ENTER of 90.30. Thirty students (11.9% of the class) scored above 99.00 with two students scoring the maximum 99.95, five scoring 99.90, two scoring 99.85 and another two scoring 99.80. Thirty students also scored between 98.00 and 98.95, meaning that 23.8% of students were ranked in the top 2% of all Year 12 students in the state. 129 boys (51.0%) scored 90 or more, 195 boys (77.1%) scored 80 or more and 222 boys (87.7%) scored 70 or more.

Extracurricular activities

The school has many extracurricular activities, ranging from a wide variety of sports to other various services. The school competes in the APS league in Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Cricket, Cross Country, Australian Rules Football, Hockey, Rowing, Rugby, Soccer, Squash, Swimming and Diving, Table tennis, Tennis, Volleyball and Water Polo.

Scotch has also achieved much success in debating, competing in the Debaters Association of Victoria Schools Competition. In 2006 the First Debating Team were the State A Grade Runners Up, in addition to being runners up in the State British Parliamentary Debating Competition. Each season, the school hosts the Hawthorn region of the Schools Competition, the largest region in the entirety of Victoria. Recently the school has also achieved representation on the Victorian Schools Debating Team, and in 2005 commenced a biennial debating tour to the United Kingdom where Scotch College competed in debates against schools including Eton College, The Leys School and Dulwich College.

"Services", extracurricular activities which are compulsory for students in Years 9-12 are held on thursdays, and include Cadets, Scouts, Sea Scouts, Sports First Aid, Pipe Band, Military Band, Outdoor Program, Outdoor Expedition Group as well as Junior Sport.

The school's cadet unit is the oldest military unit in Australia, formed in 1851, even before the Australian Army. It is broken down each year into two or three recruit companies, then broken down again into three or four platoons (subject to the number of enrollments,) and also a support company consisting of HQ, Signals, Mountaineering, Boating, and Engineering. Every year, there is a 3 day bivouac and a 5 day main camp in the Grampians with nearly 400 people attending. The annual tattoo is a formal ceremony at the end of the year which includes all members of the unit. The tattoo rehearsal goes for most of term four as it includes rifle drill. Thousands come to watch the tattoo, which is always presided over by a high-ranking member of the Australian Defence Force. Every year, members of the unit march in the Anzac Day parade through Melbourne.

Every year the Senior School undertakes a 24 hour hike to raise money for charities. The record for the 24 hour period stands at 150.8 kms, although many people do reach 100km's. This raises in excess of $15,000 every year.

Scotch College has a successful sporting history. In 2006 the school jointly won the APS Australian Rules Premiership, First VIII Rowing (Head of the River (Australia)) and VSRU Open Grade Rugby. It is 5th time in the last 6 years Scotch has won the Rugby first XV's and the third consecutive year it has won the Head of the River.

Several players from the school's First XVIII have been drafted by AFL clubs in recent years. Such players include Campbell Brown, Nathan Djerkurra, Edward Barlow and Nicholas Smith.

Facilities

The school's main 27 hectare campus is located in Hawthorn.

Sporting facilities include 3 cricket/AFL fields, 1 rugby field, 18 tennis courts, 1 outdoor basketball court, 2 soccer field, 1 synthetic surface hockey field, 1 climbing wall, 25 m heated indoor swimming and a diving pool, 3 gymnasiums, 3 squash courts, an observatory, a rifle range and a weights room. Since the school is situated on the banks of the Yarra River, the school has rowing and boating facilities located within its grounds including a Fours shed, and an Eights shed as well as a club room, changing rooms, and weights and Ergo rooms.

The school also has a very large music and drama building called the James Forbes Academy, the first stage of which was opened in 2002, which includes two computer music rooms, many rooms for private music lessons and an orchestra room and other recital rooms. The second stage was opened last 2005, and includes two professional standard theaters seating over 500 with one built for music and the other for drama which includes a sky walk, as well as three other drama and communication studies rooms. This facility, built at a cost in excess of $30 million, houses one of the finest music and drama departments of any Australian school.

In addition to the Hawthorn property, the School has about 80 hectares of forest in the hills at Healesville east of Melbourne and a residential seaside property at Cowes on Phillip Island. The property at Cowes is the site of a one week orientation camp for all Year 7 students early in the year and numerous other camps. A lodge for the use of boarders has been built near Mansfield, 130 km northeast of Melbourne.

Headmasters

Scotch College has had a total of eight Principals with the retirement of Gordon Donaldson at the end of 2007

  • Robert Lawson (1851-1856)
  • Alexander Morrison (1857–1903)
  • William Still Littlejohn (1904-1933)
  • Colin Macdonald Gilray (1934-1953)
  • Richard Selby Smith (1953-1964)
  • Dr F Gordon Donaldson AM (1983-2007)

House System

The school has 12 senior school houses. Both boarders and day boys are mixed into houses after joining the school. The houses are named after people such as ex-headmasters and distinguished ex-teachers. The houses are: Bond, Davidson, Eggelston, Field, Fleming, Forbes, Gilray, Lawson, Littlejohn, Monash, Morrison, Selby-Smith. Each year the twelve houses compete for the prestigious "Cock House" trophy by partaking in various events including Summer and Winter house sports days, house chorals, house swimming and diving, house cross country, as well as chess, debating, and public speaking tournaments. The sporting competition ends with the athletics events held on Family Day, however house points can also be earned via fund raising and other such activities.

On 'The Hill', as the boarding precinct is known, boarders are divided into three houses which are called Arthur Robinson, McMeckan and School. The boarding houses also participate in an interhouse tournament during the year, the Wedderburn Cup. Activities include cycling, tennis, swimming, diving, Australian Rules, soccer, tug o'war, touch rugby.

Alumni

Academic research of Who's Who in Australia (a listing of notable Australians) showed that Scotch College alumni were listed more often than those of any other school.[1][2]

Scotch is the only school whose alumni have held each of the offices of Governor-General, Prime Minister, Chief Justice of the High Court, Head of the Australian Defence Forces, Governor, Premier and Chief Justice of a Supreme Court.

Scotch has educated more Governors-General of Australia (three) and Australian State Premiers (eight Premiers of four different States) than any other Australian school.

Academic

Politics

Law

Military

Business

Media, Entertainment and the Arts

Sport

Other

References

  1. ^ Mark Peel and Janet McCalman, Who Went Where in Who's Who 1988: The Schooling of the Australian Elite, Melbourne University History Research Series Number 1, 1992
  2. ^ Ian Hansen, Nor Free Nor Secular: Six Independent Schools in Victoria, a First Sample, Oxford University Press, 1971

External link

Members of the Associated Public Schools of Victoria, Australia

Brighton Grammar | Carey Grammar | Caulfield Grammar | Geelong Grammar | Haileybury | Melbourne Grammar | Scotch | St. Kevin's | The Geelong College | Wesley | Xavier

Presbyterian Church of Australia Schools

Belgrave Heights Christian School | Covenant College, Canberra | Fairholme College | King's College, Warrnambool | Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney | Presbyterian Ladies' College, Armidale | Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne | St. Andrew's Christian College | Scotch College, Melbourne | The Scots College | The Scots School, Bathurst
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