Scotch College, Melbourne

Scotch College
Location
Hawthorn , VIC Australia
Information
Type	Independent all-male primary and secondary
Motto	Deo Patriae litteris 'to God, for country, and for learning'
Established	1851
Founder	Rev. James Forbes
Chairman	Mr David Crawford
Principal	Dr F.G. Donaldson AM
Chaplain	Rev. Graham Bradbeer
Grades	Prep-12
Enrolment	400 Junior, >1,400 Senior
Campus	Suburban
Colour(s)	Cardinal (Gold & Royal Blue)
Affiliations	Presbyterian, APSV
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 of Victoria, 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.

Governance

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.

Scotch is 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.

Members of the School Council currently include

• David Crawford (Chairman of Lend Lease Corporation and National Foods, Director of BHP Billiton, Westpac and Fosters)
• Dr David Kemp (former Federal Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs)
• Professor Ian Harper (Chairman of the Australian Fair Pay Commission)
• Craig Drummond (CEO of Goldman Sachs JB Were)

Fees

Tuition fees range between $16,000 per annum and just over $20,000 per annum (P-12) for day boys. Fees for boarders are up to $36,000 per annum.

Academic

Memorial Hall

Scotch is consistently ranked as one of the top performing schools academically as measured by Victorian Certificate of Education indicators. In 2006 it achieved a median ENTER of 90.40. 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. The school has also achieved representation on the Victorian Schools Debating Team for three consecutive years. In 2005, it 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. This tour will occur again in 2007.

"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, Social Services as well as Junior Sport. Almost all of these activities involve at least one camp each year, and in the case of social services, weekly interaction with local community organisations assisting the elderly, blind and deaf among others.

Scotch instills a strong sense of service and patriotism amongst its students. Each year, the student body actively fundraises for various charitable causes. The most prolific recent activity was the Kapumfi Project which commenced in 2005. In the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, international aid agencies were flooded with donations from around the world. Thus, Scotch entered into a partnership with World Vision to assist in Africa, raising in excess of $200,000 to construct a new school in impoverished Zaire.

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,) support company consisting of Mountaineering, Boating, and Engineering and then HQ which includes the Signals platoon. 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 km, although many people do reach 100 km. 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. It won a fourth consecutive Head of the River in 2007.

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.

Cordner-Eggleston Cup

This a football match that is played every year between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch. This match is a tradition for both schools as it commemorates the first game of Australian Rules Football, which was played between the schools in 1858. In the year 2007 Scotch won the match.

Facilities

The Quad

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 fields, 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. The next major infrastructure project for the school involves the construction of a new science and technology block, replacing the current facility which is more than forty years old.

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.

Principals

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)
• Colin Healey(1965-1974)
• Philip Anthony Vere Roff(1975-1982)
• 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.

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. On the other hand, Scotch also educated the pioneering Australian anarchist J.A. Andrews

Former Students of the Scotch College, Melbourne are known as "Old Scotch Collegians". For a list of notable "Old Scotch Collegians", see List of Old Scotch Collegians.

See also

• List of schools in Victoria
• List of high schools in Victoria
• List of schools in Victoria, Australia according to 2006 VCE results
• Victorian Certificate of Education

External links

• Scotch College, Melbourne website
• Scotch College, 1970-1975 website