Wesley College, Melbourne
Wesley College is a co-educational, open-entry private school in Melbourne, Australia. Established in 1866, the college is the only school in Victoria to offer the International Baccalaureate from early childhood to Year 12.
The college consists of three main metropolitan campuses in Melbourne, St Kilda Road, Glen Waverley and Elsternwick, residential/boarding facilities, three outdoor education sites, a year 9 residential learning campus in Clunes and the Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School in the Kimberley Region.
Wesley was the first registered school in Australia and is a founding member of the Associated Public Schools of Victoria. It is affiliated with the Independent Primary School Heads of Australia, the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria, the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia and the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference.
Overview
Wesley College operates in a three mini-school structure, which caters for students from early childhood through to Year 12. In the Junior Schools, students from the Early Childhood Learning Centre to Year 4 are taught within the framework of the IB Primary Years Programme. In Middle School, students continue to learn within the framework of the IB Primary Years Programme before transitioning into the IB Middle Years Programme in Year 7. In the Senior Schools, Wesley offers the Victorian Certificate of Education, IB Diploma Programme and Vocational Education and Training.Wesley enrolment is not subject to entrance examinations or other requirements although some preference is given to female students in order to achieve gender balance. A report in 2019 cited Wesley's fees as among the highest of any school in Victoria.
Campuses
St Kilda Road
Established in 1866, the St Kilda Road campus has approximately 1,500 students from early childhood through to Year 12. The campus is around four kilometres from the Melbourne city centre. The campus comprises two sites, with the Middle and Senior Schools located on St Kilda Road and the Junior School in close proximity to High Street and St Kilda Road.Glen Waverley
The Glen Waverley campus, established in 1966, has over 1,200 students from early childhood through to Year 12. The campus is home to Wesley's boarding facility.In 2016, parts of the Middle School were burned down during a fire, which led to the construction of the new Drennen centre.
Elsternwick
The Elsternwick campus, established in late 1988, has over 400 students from early childhood through to Year 9.Clunes
The Clunes residential campus was established in 1999. Year 9 students spend eight weeks living with one another as part of a unique residential program, where they learn with and contribute to the local community. Girls and boys live separately in 15 residential houses designed by award-winning architect, Daryl Jackson AO. Each house accommodates up to eight students, with adult House Leaders supporting the overall wellbeing of students and house logistics.Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School
Established in 2010, Yiramalay was born out of a partnership between Wesley College and the Bunuba community of the Kimberley in Western Australia.Outdoor Education Sites
Wesley has three outdoor education camp sites in Victoria. Wesley's 130 hectare outdoor education camp at Chum Creek, near Healesville, commenced in 1952, coinciding with the establishment of Timbertop by Geelong Grammar School. The original site was donated in 1952 by Alfred Wall, a parent whose family still owns land adjacent to the camp. One of the buildings was commemorated with a sign dedicated to Alfred Wall which has since fallen off and not been returned to its location.The remaining was purchased in late 1999. Camp Mallana is located on on the Banksia Peninsula, between Bairnsdale and Paynesville, with frontage to Lake Victoria and the Duck Arm shoreline. Camp Lochend, purchased in 1988, is located on near Portland.
Child sex abuse
In 2021, Wesley College's administration was successfully sued for failing to protect students from child sexual abuse. Lawyers accused the private school’s administration of allowing abuse to flourish and failing to protect students. A former student at Wesley College was awarded a record settlement of $3 million as compensation for institutional child abuse, after the court ruled that he was sexually assaulted by two former teachers at the school in the 1970s. The abuse was perpetrated by former staff members John McMillan, who sexually abused the boy at Wesley College leadership camps in the years between 1972 and 1974, and Stewart Heywood a former school counselor and long-time teacher, who then repeatedly abused the boy from 1976 until 1979. A number of other victims of McMillan and Heywood have come forward and accused Wesley College of putting "whatever legal obstacles they could" in order to prevent victims receiving proper compensation.History
The beginnings of Wesley College came from a decision of the colonial government of Victoria in the wake of the Victorian gold rush to grant land and funds to four religious groups, including the Wesleyan Methodist Church, for the purpose of establishing colleges in Melbourne. In 1854, the government offered the Wesleyans facing St Kilda Road. Major benefactor Walter Powell encouraged other Wesleyan Methodists to bridge the gap in funds between the government grant and that required to build the school. Daniel Draper and others subsequently contributed sufficient funds. The foundation stone was laid at the present site of the St Kilda Road campus on 4 January 1865. Draper drowned at sea on the day of the school's official opening on 11 January 1866. The first student, Frederick Binks, arrived on 18 January.James Waugh was chairman of the school committee from foundation until 1883. James Corrigan was the first of seven Headmasters in Wesley's first 35 years. The school struggled for numbers over some of this period. The Depression of the 1890s provided a particular challenge when Arthur Way was Headmaster, and came to a head in 1896 under Arthur Stephenson when enrolment dropped to 90 boys and closure was threatened. Thomas Palmer's tenure as headmaster was curtailed early in 1902 after he was found to have embezzled more than £1,000 of the school's funds.
The colours purple and gold were first chosen when the school was established in 1866. In 1875, they were changed to light blue and white, but reverted to purple and gold in 1902.
Lawrence Adamson is generally regarded as the single most important figure in the school's history. Adamson was Headmaster from 1902 to 1932 after beginning his teaching career there in 1887. His influence on Wesley survived well into the latter part of the 20th century from staff who were either appointed or were students during his tenure. A recent history of the school defined his contribution as giving Wesley "prosperity, direction and reputation". He personally contributed thousands of pounds of his personal fortune to the school. Adamson was considered less effective in his last decade as headmaster, with the centenary history published in 1967 providing the first overt criticism of him.
The St Kilda Road campus was substantially rebuilt and expanded between 1933 and 1939 following a bequest from philanthropists Alfred and George Nicholas. The gift of around £200,000 funded twin double-storey buildings, science laboratories, a Junior School building, swimming pool, gymnasium, chapel and other facilities. In 1942 the Australian Government requisitioned the school's campus for the Australian Army, resulting in Wesley being accommodated at Scotch College from 1942 to 1943. The college was running out of space at St Kilda Road and as early as 1937 had secured an option to purchase the land and buildings of Box Hill Grammar School. Headmaster Neil MacNeil advanced this option, opening negotiations in 1946. Commercial agreement was reached in 1947 following McNeil's death in office but was never acted on and finally abandoned in 1955.
Thomas Coates and David Prest were long-serving headmasters during a period of substantial change, particularly during Prest's tenure. The school purchased land at Syndal in 1955, and for the next few years considered selling the St Kilda Road campus to fund building at its new location. However, by 1959 it had decided to retain its St Kilda Road location, move the Junior School and establish playing fields at Syndal. Following a period of fund-raising, the new campus opened in 1966.
The school opened enrolment to girls in 1978. Boarding was discontinued in 1980, in order to accommodate more students at St Kilda Road. Wesley first approached Cato College, Elsternwick in the late 1970s regarding amalgamation. Struggling financially, Cato agreed to this in 1986, with integration into Wesley completed by 1989. In November 1989, a fire substantially damaged the St Kilda Road campus. Significant archival material was lost with the virtual destruction of the school library. The damaged areas were rebuilt by 1991.
Historian Andrew Lemon characterised Glen McArthur's tenure as headmaster as leaving a sense of "unease".
With the two larger campuses becoming more autonomous and competitive, McArthur was encouraged by the school council to engender a greater sense of a single school, but in doing so he challenged the positions of both campus heads, who left during his tenure. Ill-health affected McArthur's incumbency, and he died in 1998. David Loader became principal of Wesley in 1997 after 18 years as head of Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne and brought to fruition the country-based year 9 learning campus at Clunes in 2000. Former Glen Waverley campus head Helen Drennen became Wesley College's first female principal in June 2003.
In April 2016, a fire at the Glen Waverley campus destroyed ten years 5 and 6 classrooms.