| St Michael's Grammar School | |
| Motto: | Latin: Pro Ecclesia Dei |
| Motto Translation: | For the Church of God |
| Country: | Australia |
| Coordinates: | -37.8594°N 144.9911°W |
| Pushpin Map: | Australia Melbourne |
| Pushpin Mapsize: | 240 |
| Chairman: | Andrew Eddy |
| Principal: | Gerard Houlihan |
| Principal Label: | Head of the School |
| Staff: | 225 |
| Colours: | Blue, red, white |
| Slogan: | Nurturing Creative, Inquiring Minds |
| Grades Label: | Years |
| Gender: | Co-educational |
| Enrolment: | 1,194 |
St Michael's Grammar School is an Australian independent Anglican co-educational primary and secondary day school located in the Melbourne suburb of, Victoria.
St Michael's was founded in 1895 by the Community of the Sisters of the Church and remains in its original location on a single campus. The School is associated with the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne and is a member of the Association of Coeducational Schools (ACS) and the Junior School Heads Association of Australia.
The school educates students from 3-year-old kindergarten to the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE), which all Year 12 students at St Michael's complete.
In 1870, Mother Emily Ayckbowm founded the Community of the Sisters of the Church, a new Anglican religious order. The order was invited to Australia to further educational work for girls, and St Michael's was one of six schools established in different parts of Australia. They also founded schools in England, New Zealand and Canada. The schools, known as The Emily Group, share the same crest, patron saint and founding narrative, however, they all differ in significant ways, which enriches the group’s diversity. St Michael’s is the sole coeducational school in the group. On 23 April 1895, in Marlton Crescent, St Kilda, the Sisters opened an advanced primary school: The Church of England Day School (now St Michael's).
In 1972, St Michael’s Church of England Girls Grammar School Pty Ltd (later a company limited by guarantee) was established in 1972 to manage the School. The idea was put forward to make the school co-educational. In 1974 a coeducation subcommittee was established, and the School embarked on its coeducational journey. In 1980, with the appointment of a new Headmaster, Anthony Hewison,[1] the decision was taken to admit boys to all levels of the school, thus making it fully coeducational, and to embark on modernising the school.
With the arrival of Headmaster Simon Gipson in the year 2000, the School administration adopted new approaches, including introducing modern terminology, a new school uniform,[2] and a six-stage building plan, including the Sisters of the Church Learning Centre and the new playing surface for the oval.[3]
On 6 December 2007, St Michael's purchased the Astor Theatre building in St Kilda.[4] The cinema continued to operate as usual, with films screening at nights and on weekends, while the building was often used by the school for assemblies and events on weekdays. On 24 August 2012 the school announced that it had sold the building to Ralph Taranto.[5] [6]
The sisters have retained their interest in the school but no longer play a part in its governance. The school is managed by a Head who is appointed by a board of directors.
St Michael's offers a wide range of subjects including core mathematics, science, English, IT, LOTEs (Languages Other Than English), arts and humanities courses. At primary level, all students study basic subjects including mathematics, English, science, geography, history, Japanese, music and sport. The school is renowned for its Performing Arts program.[7]
St Michael's is a member of the Association of Coeducational Schools (ACS).
St Michael's has won the following ACS premierships since 1998.[8]
OVERALL CHAMPIONS: (9) 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
Sport Carnivals:
Combined:
Boys:
Girls:
Drama has one of the highest voluntary participation numbers among students of any department of the school. Each year the school performs a large number of productions, including Years 10 to 12 senior musical; the Years 7 to 9 musical and play; Dance Project (a contemporary dance production); a student production; a house drama festival and three yearly senior productions (Year 6, Years 7–9, Years 10–12). In 2001, St Michael's was the first school to stage a production at Melbourne’s Athenaeum Theatre with the performance of Les Misérables.[9] The 2010 senior musical, 13, was the Australian premiere of the musical and won the best production award at the Victorian Musical Theatre Guild awards (the fourth St Michael's musical to do so).[10]
St Michael's also conducts an annual house drama competition, and an annual house singing & aerobics competition, in which all five of the school houses perform a musical item. Many other musical ensembles perform regularly throughout the year, including the 7–12 Harrison Choir, which each year performs a large choral work, and the Grigoryan Orchestra (named for school alumnus, classical guitarist Slava Grigoryan).
The Great Barrier Reef project involves year 10 students studying VCE Unit 2 biology in Far North Queensland, participating in a month of research on the Great Barrier Reef. Activities include daily snorkelling from St Michael's Orpheus Island Research Campus.
Originally the program ran for a duration of one month, but has since been extended to include days in Townsville, Paluma and Tully to learn more about Indigenous culture.
Historically, when St Michael's student body was much smaller, the entire senior school went on school camp, or 'Exodus', together. Exodus camps have for many years been split between year and house groups for students in Years 7 to 11. Each student from Year 7 to Year 11 experiences a minimum of five days of outdoor education each year, with the programs run by the Outdoor Education Group. Junior school programs mainly involve staying in cabins (although part of the Year 6 Exodus involves sleeping in tents) and participating in various activities.
Senior school programs are quite diverse, ranging from bush walking in Year 7 to choices including rafting, kayaking, rock-climbing, tree-planting or cycling in year 11. Year 10 students may also have great choice in their Exoduses, including Hattah Solo, a popular program involving students spending 24 hours out of the week-long program alone (albeit in close proximity to other students and supervisors) for the purposes of reflection and learning self-sufficiency. Exodus for each year level is slightly more challenging than the last, and there is a different theme for each year level.
Every year students in year 11 have the option to take part in the Kosciuszko to the Coast program in lieu of the year 11 Exodus (School camp). This is a challenging 20-day expedition where students travel (through various methods including snowshoeing, hiking, white-water rafting and canoeing) from Mount Kosciuszko to the coast of Victoria, camping along the way.
The European Touring Choir consists of boys and girls in Years 8–12. The group travels biannually to Europe to compete in international choir competitions and perform on world stagesy. Past tours have travelled to Rome, Carrara, Pisa, Venice, Vicenza, Nördlingen, Reykjavík, Copenhagen, Berlin, Leipzig, Hagen, Cologne, Voorburg, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Florence, York, Croissy, Munich and Vienna, including performances at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Llangollen International Eisteddfod in Wales.
St Michael's has a "School of Rock" program, where students in Years 7–12 are mentored by rock musicians, leading to public performances and recordings.[11]
The program is notable for being the origin of the Cheeky Geezers,[12] a prominent local rock band of the recent live Melbourne music scene that has supported several of Australia's greatest punk acts and performed in major venues across Victoria such as the Corner Hotel, The Tote Hotel, Croxton Bandroom, Cherry Bar, Hotel Esplanade, Federation Square, as well as the Abbotsford Convent as part of the Punters Club Reunion Show.[13] [14] [15] [16] They also performed as part of the entertainment for the 2022 Australian Grand Prix.[17]
St Michael's has student exchange programs with schools in Japan and France.
The Japanese exchange with Keio Shonan-Fujisawa Junior & Senior High School in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture has been operating for over 10 years.
The French exchange began in 1999 and takes place every two years, with Le Bon Sauveur in Paris. The St Michael's students usually go to France for five to six weeks during their summer holiday (December–January). The return trip to Australia by the students of Le Bon Sauveur usually happens in July–August of the following year.
The school is involved in social service, working to raise money for various charities.[18]
Once or twice a term, a Community Action Day is held, organised by the social service captains of each house, to raise money for a diverse number of charities. Every year in May, a prefect-organised program, the 'Merry Month of May', is held to raise money for social initiatives. Activities such as a 'Battle of the Bands', barbecues, dress-up days, movie viewings, novelty races, great debates and theatresport contests are held each day. Also in conjunction with the Merry Month of May, the school participates in the World's Greatest Shave for the Leukaemia Foundation, in which participants shave their heads to show solidarity for leukaemia sufferers, raising money through collecting donations. In 2016, the Merry Month of May raised a record sum of $30,678. The school leadership teams in both the senior and junior schools in 2011 also raised money for relief for the Christchurch earthquake, Japanese tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster and the bushfires in Victoria and Queensland.
The Junior School Houses (Years K–6) are Moss, Woods, Marlton and Cintra.
The Senior School Houses (Years 7–12) are Mitre, Sarum, Hughes, Kilburn and Breen. Mitre, Sarum, Hughes and Kilburn are the four original school houses and were all created in 1922, all significant for their own reasons. When the school started to grow a fifth senior school house, Breen was created in 1987. The pastoral care system is based on a house structure which deals with all matters relating to a student's wellbeing or curriculum needs. Each student is placed in a house tutorial group which is overseen by a house tutor. There are five houses and therefore five house tutorial groups at each year level. A house contains students from Years 7 to 12. Each house is led by two co-heads. The members of each house are led by co-house captains and co-vice-captains. The houses meet on a regular basis.
The house tutor and heads of house work as a team to monitor the academic and personal progress of each student in the house tutorial group and house. Generally, the house tutor is the first and main point of contact between the parent and the school.
The following individuals have served as the school principal:
| Ordinal | Officeholder | Title | Term start | Term end | Time in office | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sister Hannah | Principal | 1895 | 1903 | years | ||
| Sister Adele | 1903 | 1912 | years | |||
| Sister Mildred | 1912 | 1925 | years | |||
| Sister Persis | 1925 | 1933 | years | |||
| Sister Dora Beatrice | 1934 | 1939 | years | |||
| Sister Eudora | 1939 | 1944 | years | |||
| Sister Karina | 1945 | 1949 | years | |||
| Sister Shirley | 1950 | 1952 | years | |||
| Sister Gabrielle | 1953 | 1954 | years | |||
| Sister Patricia | 1955 | 1963 | years | |||
| Sister Scholastica | 1963 | 1966 | years | |||
| Sister Gabrielle | 1966 | 1967 | years | |||
| Sister Scholastica | 1967 | 1968 | years | |||
| Sister Elizabeth May | 1968 | 1970 | years | |||
| Sister Scholastica | 1971 | 1972 | years | |||
The following individuals have served as the head of the school or any previous title:
| Ordinal | Officeholder | Title | Term start | Term end | Time in office | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May Vicars Foote | Headmistress | 1937 | 1946 | years | ||
| Dorothy Benson | Headmistress | 1963 | 1965 | years | ||
| Margaret Thomas | 1965 | 1979 | years | |||
| Anthony Hewison | Headmaster | 1980 | 1999 | years | ||
| Head of the School | 2000 | 2017 | years | [19] | ||
| Terrie Jones | 2018 | 2022 | years | |||
| Gerard Houlihan | 2022 | present | years |