Mount Alexander College, formerly known as Debney Park Secondary College, is a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

located on

Mount Alexander Road Mount Alexander Road (and its northern section as Bulla Road) is a major road in Melbourne's inner northern suburbs, connecting the northern edges of the city district to just south of Essendon Airport. It was named after its original destina ...

, Flemington, a suburb of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, Australia.

History

In 1858, Flemington National School was established. The school building was colloquially referred to as the 'iron pot' for its distinct iron structure. On 31 March 1885 the school was closed due to increased competition from newer neighbouring schools in

Ascot Vale Ascot Vale is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Moonee Valley local government area. Ascot Vale recorded a population of 15,197 at the 2021 c ...

and

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

. The school was reopened later the same year to relieve overcrowding at Kensington State School. The upgrading and rebuilding of Flemington State School No. 250, saw the school reopened as Flemington School of Domestic Arts, which catered exclusively for girls in Forms 1–3 (Years 7–9). A navy tunic, white blouse, hat and gloves became the school's uniform. Due to the changing needs of the local community, the Department of Education decided in the early 1970s that the school should become

coeducational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

. Debney Park High School was formed and boys were introduced into Form 1 in 1973. The last all-girls class was Form 5 in 1976. In 1996 the older sections of the school were demolished and replaced by the buildings that occupy the site today. To provide much-needed recreational space for its increasing enrolment, the Department of Education purchased a site adjacent to the school from the

Uniting Church The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) was founded on 22 June 1977, when most congregations of the Methodist Church of Australasia, about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and almost all the churches of the Congregational Union ...

in 1999. At the end of 2011, the school was renamed Mount Alexander College.

School Names

References

Secondary schools in Melbourne Educational institutions established in 1858 1858 establishments in Australia Flemington, Victoria Buildings and structures in the City of Moonee Valley {{VictoriaAU-school-stub