Wellington Secondary College


Wellington Secondary College is a co-educational state high school in Mulgrave, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The College is divided into three Sub-Schools and six Year Levels: Junior School, Middle School and Senior School. Distinguished former Victorian Bushrangers cricketer Brendan McArdle is a teacher at the school.

Coat-of-arms and motto

The emblem was updated in 2002 to have a more contemporary feel than the old design, but while still retaining key elements.
The school motto is "Caring, Striving, Learning".

History

Wellington was established in 1972 as Dingley Area High School. Its name changed to Mulgrave High School, then to Wellington High School in January 1973. Wellington was originally intended for the Dingley area, but was relocated by the Education Department to the Mulgrave area.
Founding principal of the school was the late A.M. Fogarty, from 1973 to 1977. M.B Peters was appointed principal in 1978 after the death of Forgarty in 1977. Max Peters retired in July 1982 and Jack Landvogt was appointed in 1984, then retired in 1986. John Coulson was appointed in 1987, and introduced the school motto and the college crest. John Coulson retired in 2004 and the principal, Mary-Jo Putrino, was appointed. In mid 2012, Mary-Jo Putrino retired, and a new principal, Hugh Blakie was appointed.

Houses

The House System commenced in 1988 and the titles are derived from the names of four ships from the historic First Fleet that landed the first permanent European settlers from Great Britain in Australia two hundred years earlier in 1788 under the command of the Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip.
Each house is led by two Senior House Captains and six Vice House Captains
Students participate in a number of sporting and non-sporting activities during the year to gain points towards the M.B. Peter Cup for their house. There are three major house sporting carnivals in a year. They are the Swimming, Athletics and Cross-Country carnivals.

School layout

The school has two large courtyards surrounded by blocks of classrooms. There is an A, B, C, G, H, J, M, R, and T blocks. The school also has six basketball courts and a large open area which is referred to as the "oval". There is also a large multi-purpose assembly hall with adjoining change rooms and a small gym. Wellington also has a Senior school centre which was named the Hamilton Centre. There was a $7.0 million upgrade to the school's facilities in 2010 to build a new junior school centre, and an upgrade to the halls that included a new performing arts centre and relocation of the school's "R" Block.

Building program

On Monday 13 July 2009 the new junior school centre or also referred as the "M" Block was opened, the new gymnasium is almost complete and "R" block has been relocated to make space for "M" Block. The first Gymnasium has been completed and work is currently progressing on the second gymnasium. J block and G block are currently under lock-down as renovations are taking place. Term 4 witnessed the whole of the western courtyard demolished to make way for a designer landscape courtyard complete with brick work seating and shade sales. Work is beginning on the new state of the art performing arts centre complete with 288 seat theatre. Funding has been allocated for further improvements in 2018.
The original layout of the school was a government design from the mid-1970s. this was implemented and built at various schools around the state. Brentwood Secondary Colleges original layout was that of Wellington Secondary Colleges. And a gym identical to Wellington's Original gym can be found at Mount Waverley Secondary College.
Term 2, 2019 saw the opening of the E. H. Blaikie Vanellus Centre. The new building houses the administration and front offices, the school library and classrooms, as well as a lecture space.

Curriculum

English

English is compulsory for all year levels, with the exception of students studying ESL. Students undertake many varied activities in developing their skills in this subject area. At the VCE level, mainstream students can choose to study either English, Literature or English Language.

LOTE (language Other Than English

The Foreign languages studied at Wellington Secondary College are Mandarin and French. It was French and Indonesian that students could study but later on Indonesian was removed making the only foreign language students could learn was French.
Students undertake French, Mandarin and ESL from years 7 to 8, and have the choice to study it in years 9 and up.

VCE studies

Accounting

Automotive Technology Studies

Biology

Building & Construction Carpentry

Business

Business Management

Chemistry

Community Services Work

Design and Technology

Economics

Electrotechnology

English

English Language

English

French

Food And Technology

Fuddu

Further Mathematics

General Mathematics

Health and Human Development

Horticulture

Hospitality - Operations

Information Technology

IT Applications

Legal Studies

Literature

Mathematical Methods

Multimedia

Panchod

Physical Education

Physics

Psychology

Revolutions

Specialist Mathematics

Studio Arts

Theatre Studies
Visual Communication and Design

Wholesale Retail Personal Services

Uniform

Uniform is compulsory at the College. Student leaders wear a distinctive blazer with a special pocket that denotes their actual appointment. Students in Years 7–10 wear a royal blue jumper that features the College emblem while the senior students wear a similar navy blue jumper.
During Winter everybody wears a tie with the girls wearing a shirt and skirt or slacks and boys with shirt with trousers.
During Summer Girls wear summer dress while boys wear the same for winter excluding the tie.
Shoes should black leather.
There is also Sports Uniform which helps identify the colour of a student's house.
A Uniform shop is located at the I. J. Hamilton Senior School Centre, entry via the door in the car park.

Sports

1977

Boys Intermediate All-High Soccer Runners-Up

1979

Boys Senior All-High Soccer Runners-Up

1980

Boys Senior All-High Soccer Champions
Coach: Bohdan Babijczuk
Team: Tibor Hagymas, Sean Coulter, Gary Evison,Dragan Dejanovic, Smiljan Papac, Senad Sabitovic, Joe Sumic,John Vafiadis, Brendan Runge, Robert Velardo, Chris Halsey, Graham McCole, Ivan Adjukovic, Jim Frangou & Danny Bojcic

2000

Boys VCE soccer team won the state championship.

2007

Year 7 Table Tennis team won the state championship.

Media

In the 2017-18 State Budget, it was announced that $5.5 million was allocated to the school to build a new library, technology and administration area.
Amber Truong's story and her outstanding 2017 VCE performance were covered by "The Age".

Other

Wombles

"Wombles" were introduced in 1978. It is a term used for students who are rostered to provide a day of service to the College. Students are permitted to wear casual clothes when they have to "womble".
Wombles from years 7, 8 and 9 usually clean up the school yard from rubbish. Whereas a year 10 "senior womble" perform tasks such as distributing notices, running messages and locking the locker bays.

Moodle

Wellington has a learning website that allows students and teachers to log in and upload IT assignments and do other things. You can even make a blog. The moodle is still being updated for better functions and to be more user friendly. it is mainly utilized by the I.T department, but other class teachers can make subject pages if they so desire.

College anthem

Wellington Secondary College has a school anthem, 'The Wellington Way'. A competition was run in 1995 for students to compose and submit an anthem that represented the school and its students. It is sung on special occasions like assemblies and Awards Nights.