Scotch College, Melbourne

History

Scotch College is the oldest surviving secondary school in Victoria. Its foundation was due to the initiative of James Forbes, of the Free Presbyterian Church, who arrived in 1838 as the first settled Christian minister in what became the colony of Victoria in 1851. It is "the outcome of the old Scottish ideal of education", in which church and school were inextricably connected. The school opened on 6 October 1851, under the name of the Melbourne Academy in a small house in Spring Street, with Robert Lawson, a Scot from Edinburgh University, as the first principal. The house was soon outgrown, as was a larger one on the northwest corner of Spring and Little Collins Streets (later the Ulster Family Hotel) and the Church applied to the government for a grant of land. Two acres were reserved for the school on Eastern Hill and substantial new buildings were erected there in 1853. The cost was met partly by a government grant and partly from funds raised by the friends of the school.
Lawson resigned in 1856. Under his successor, Alexander Morrison, the school grew and prospered; it came under the oversight of the newly formed Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1859. Morrison had been Rector of Hamilton Academy and remained at Scotch for 46 years, during almost all of which time his brother Robert was a master of the college. William Still Littlejohn, who took over the school in 1904, served for 29 years, and his successor, Colin Macdonald Gilray, for 19. So, when the school became the first in Victoria to celebrate its centenary, Gilray was only the fourth principal.
Gilray was succeeded in 1953 by R. Selby Smith, an Old Rugbeian who had served in the Royal Navy during the war and was at the time of his appointment Deputy Director of Education for Warwickshire. Smith resigned in 1964 to become the Foundation Dean of Education at Monash University.
C. O. Healey, who had been Headmaster of Sydney Grammar School since 1951, succeeded Smith. Healey retired in January 1975.
In the following May, P. A. V. Roff, formerly Headmaster of Scotch College, Adelaide, was installed as the seventh principal of the college. Roff's tenure, though a brief seven years, was characterised by an expanding voice for staff in the day-to-day management of the school, the establishment of a Foundation Office at the School under the direction of a Development Officer and the widening of the House System to provide greater depth in pastoral care. His last few years saw the school in dispute over ownership and, for the principal and his school community, it was a time of stress. In 1980 the decision was made to incorporate the school and a new Council was appointed, with representatives from the Presbyterian Church, the Old Scotch Collegians' Association and the mcantu@example.org.
F. G. Donaldson, a vice principal from Wallace High School (Northern Ireland), with a Ph.D. in atomic physics from Queens University Belfast, succeeded Roff in 1983. Under his principalship there was a significant building program that created new facilities for the education of boys, the development of ICT for administrative and educational purposes, and enhanced pastoral care of students.
I. Tom Batty was appointed as the ninth principal of Scotch and installed into office on 14 July 2008. Prior to his appointment he was Housemaster of Villiers House, Eton College in the UK. The early years of Batty's tenure have seen the introduction of a new House-based pastoral care structure in the Upper School, which began at the start of the 2011 school year.

Governance and denominational affiliation

Scotch is an incorporated body governed by a Council of seventeen members - who are directors - made up of three groups; Five Presbyterian Church of Victoria nominees (Group A), Five persons (usually Old Boys) nominated by the Old Scotch Collegians' Association (Group B), and seven persons nominated by Council from the community at large (Group C), usually with some connection with the School and the Christian church. All appointments are made annually by the Presbyterian Church from the first of December every year.
Chairmen of the Council have included Sir Arthur Robinson, Sir Archibald Glenn, Sir James Balderstone, David Crawford AO Michael B Robinson AO and David A. Kemp AC.
In 1977, most congregations of the Australian Presbyterian Church left the church and joined with the Methodist and Congregationalist churches in Australia to form the Uniting Church in Australia. The Presbyterian Church of Australia continued with the remaining congregations.  In the split, Scotch College, Melbourne was allocated to the Presbyterian Church of Australia by the Handley Commission which was appointed to distribute the assets of the churches, which included an even number of representatives from the Uniting Church and the continuing Presbyterian Church as well as independent commissioners. At the time the Scotch Council unsuccessfully appealed this decision.

Boarding

Scotch has been a boarding school since its foundation.  Today the School caters for 160 boarders of whom around 70% are drawn from around Australia and 30% are from overseas. The boarding precinct is on "The Hill" which overlooks the Senior School at the main Hawthorn campus.  There are three boarding houses:  School House, McMeckan House and Arthur Robinson House.  Both School House and McMeckan House were built as the gift of Anthony Mackie, and his brother and sisters, in memory of their uncle Captain James McMeckan.  Arthur Robinson House is named after a Chairman of the School Council, Sir Arthur Robinson.

Curriculum

Scotch students study towards the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE), which is the main secondary student assessment program in Victoria which ranks students with an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) for university entrance purposes.