Talk:Scotch College, Melbourne

Photos
Does anyone have some quality photos of the scholl - say, the Memorial Hall, Chapel, JFA, etc - that could be added to this article to enhance it?

Landsdowne
What was the exact location of the school at Landsdowne St? What is there now, and do any parts of the old school building remain? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.181.89.211 (talk) 04:16, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevant sections
The "Controversy" and "Funding" sections do not have any sources and are not encylopaedic in nature. They do not add to an understanding of the present nature of the school and seem to be more subjective than other parts of the article. I suggest thay be deleted entirely. The only relevant part of the "Funding" section seems to be the fees - which can be picked up in the general introduction. What do people think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.209.216.245 (talk • contribs) 15:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I object to the relevance and tone of this section: "The amount of money charged for tuition prohibits many families from lower socio-economic classes from sending their boys to Scotch, which has garnered Scotch the dubious distinction as the school of choice for spoiled rich kids"

It is inappropriate and should be removed —Preceding unsigned comment added by Penzance1 (talk • contribs) 14:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Academics
The article claims that Scotch was the number 1 ranking school last year. However, I believe that Melbourne High had a median ENTER score of 93 (that is, 50% of students achieved a mark of 93 or higher). Oranges91 12:37, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

-Actually, median does not denote the 50% mark, it is simply the middle term when sorted in order, therefore can be anything. The mean score is more accurate considering it is a complete average.

It may have meant top private school, which is probably true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Penzance1 (talk • contribs) 14:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Scotch is NOT the oldest School in Victoria
I notice that this article (and the Scotch website ) claim that this is the oldest school in Victoria. This is incorrect! St Mary's Williamstown has been operating on the same site and with the same name (and only three different buildings) continuously since May 1842. This is some nine years before Scotch (then called Melbourne Academy) commenced operating. See http://www.cecv.melb.catholic.edu.au/schools/schoolinfo.asp?searchfor=E1011 Could this please be corrected! Cmurphy au 10:40, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The opening paragraphy states that Scotch College is "one of the oldest" schools in Victoria. If any other instance in the article does not agree, feel free to correct it. Be Bold. Blarneytherinosaur talk 04:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

That's because I eventually changed it myself Barney. If you check the history you will also see I did make some other changes. 05:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * My mistake. Because of the message you left here, I assumed that when the paragraph had been corrected it would have been noted here.


 * The first time any information about Scotch's age was added (by me, coincidentally) stated "Scotch is one of Melbourne’s oldest high schools." This page gets quite a bit of vandalism; I can only assume that someone altered it without anyone noticing. Blarneytherinosaur talk 10:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Scotch is the oldest secondary school, and this should be reflected in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.209.216.245 (talk • contribs) 14:31, 4 October 20060 (UTC)


 * Anyone can edit Wikipedia. If you don't want to add it yourself, I would be happy to put that information in the article if there is a source to back it up. Blarneytherinosaur talk 04:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Seeing as this information in now in the article, I would like to see a source for it. Blarneytherinosaur talk 04:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Scotch may/probably is the oldest secondary school still operating in victoria. I certainly have been unable to find any which predate it, other than St Mary's which only offered years 7 and 8 last century but which is only a primary school now. Cmurphy au 01:29, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Cadet Unit
"The school's cadet unit is the oldest military unit in Australia, even formed before the Australian Army"

I'm quite sure this isnt true, i think that distinction belongs to Sydney Grammar or Kings or some other Sydney school. Its also not worded very well, is it saying the cadet unit is the oldest cadet unit in Australia? or the oldest MILITARY unit?. so seeing as its all un-verified, iv removed it till its proven. -Viva43 12:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Sydney grammar school created their Cadet unit in 1871. kings in 1869. Scotch founded their unit in 1851. I will put the following caption back into the article. "The school's cadet unit is the oldest military unit in Australia, formed in 1851, even formed before the Australian Army" It is up to you to disprove any statements you feel are false, you cannot delete things from Wikipedia just because you have a hunch that they may not be true.The Bryce 13:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

well it wasn't just a 'hunch'. Not saying I don't believe you but don't we have to reference clames such as that? -Viva43 12:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Considering the fact that there wasn't even an "Australia" until 1901, I must say that Scotch's Cadet unit would technically be the equal oldest cadet unit in Australia. Also, there were definitely Colonial Militias before the Cadet unit of Scotch College, not to mention the British Army units stationed in Australia. Oranges91 12:37, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Im not even going to bother rebuffing that because none of it made sense. -Viva43 05:17, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll make it nice and simple for you then. 1. Before 1901, there was no Australia. Thus, when Australia was created in 1901 any existing military units became "Australian". So the Scotch College cadet unit is not the oldest military unit in Australia, because in 1901 there were other military units also Australian, which are today the same 'Australian' age as that of Scotch College. 2. Before the creation of the Scotch College Cadet unit, there were British units and Colonial Militia units stationed in the various colonies of Australia. Since these Colonial Militias comprised of local settlers, they would have the title of the first military units in Australia. These militias are the forerunners of today's Australian Army, and many served with distinction in the Boer War. Oranges91 01:58, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Right you dickhead, let's turn the stupidity off. Just because Australia didn't exist yet doesn't mean there was no Australian Cadet unit at Scotch College. It was formed in 1851, before any other cadet units in Australia. When Australia became a nation in 1901 history didn't reset. The Scotch unit had been around for a long time. Just because there wasn't an actual Australian nation doesn't mean that there weren't any Cadet units formed here. The statement is true, it's the oldest unit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.219.99.47 (talk) 11:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, that took a while. Anyway, I'd like to see some evidence of it at least. I know that Melbourne High School has a plaque of cadet commanders going back to 1908, does Scotch have a similar thing? Add it to the article for authentication. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oranges91 (talk • contribs) 13:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It is listed in the Official History of the Australia Cadet Corpse. The Scotch Unit was the first unit, run on a small scale by a local Sergeant Major from a Garrison nearby. It is recognised as the oldest australian military organisation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bsub (talk • contribs) 15:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry it took a while, but I went on a Junior Leadership Course during the midyear holidays and I found something interesting. In the official Australian Army Cadets information book, in the History of the AAC section, it acknowledges the beginning of the Cadet movement in New South Wales during the 1840's by a local priest who saw the benefits of a Cadet organisation. It quickly spread to schools there before moving interstate. So, unfortunately for Scotch, the first Cadet unit was an attachment to the Volunteers in NSW. Oranges91 (talk) 11:41, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Oranges. But your own source discredits your argument. I have the junior leadership course booklet open in front of me. It states, in reference to Reverend MacArthur's attempt to introduce cadets to his school, St. Mark's Collegiate School, based in NSW: "Approval to raise the unit was granted on 29th March 1866." This is a full 15 years after the Scotch unit was created.

The precursor to his unit was a group of students involved with the local militia. In no way does that constitute an official Cadet Unit, and it implies that in the booklet.58.170.194.228 (talk) 12:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Alumni
Half the people listed as alumni aren't really all that famous or notable.--Celendin 16:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could be more specific? Another approach is of course to create a category for Scotch College Melbourne Alumni, and then the question of notability disappears, as the articles will explain the notability. &mdash; Stumps 18:19, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It says they're notable, not famous. I can't see anyone on that list who isn't notable. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 06:01, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Someone might like to consider adding to the alumni, Bill Baxter, a former National Party MLA for Murray Valley and MLC for North Eastern Province, who was Minister for Roads & Ports in the Kennett Govt —Preceding unsigned comment added by Penzance1 (talk • contribs) 14:55, 4 May 2007 (UTC) Additionally, the content referenced from "Who's who..." is from 1988, which is hardly relevant to 21st century alumni - perhaps a better source could be found to document the influence of the school. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.254.184 (talk) 10:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Famous alumni
Fame is relative; those mentioned are famous for their remarkable achievements within their own fields and therefore they are entitled to listed under famous alumni.

clearly this is backed up by other schools on wikipedia having far more extensive lists than scotch. for example, List_of_notable_Old_Newingtonians mpearse 23:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * At the risk of offending the relatives and descendants of some Old Newingtonians, this list sacrifices quality for quantity and seems to confuse worthiness or prestige with fame.


 * Also, any list of a school’s famous alumni should include the bad with the good, yet I see no notorious or infamous names in this list! (When I was at school, I remember going to a party and meeting a drunk teenager, who had been freed on bail after murdering his mother, yet his name doesn’t appear in that school’s list of “famous alumni”.)


 * If these lists are merely about bragging rights, then they're a waste of time. However, if there is any rational purpose for the creation and maintenance of these lists of famous or laudable alumni (perhaps as qualitative indicators of the sort of education a school has provided in the past) then the criteria for fame or worthiness must be clarified and standardised.


 * Finally, there is a discrepancy between the link name List_of_notable_Old_Newingtonians and the more modest heading of the page to which it is linked, namely "List of Old Newingtonians’’. I’ll mention this in a more suitable place. A Bloke Wandering (talk) 02:49, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Who's Who
have reverted to original paragraph about Scotch alumni in Who's Who. The changes that have been made to reflect MHS alumni in Who's Who etc are not approriate for the following reasons:

1 - They are not cited - where is the research to back the claim? The McCalman/Peel research and the Hansen reaseach are available at university and state libraries and at the times of its publication the McCalman/Peel research was reported on in the media. If there is newer research it should be able to be identified and cited to support any contraty statements in this article about Scotch having the highest number of almni in Who's Who.
 * I think that's the point - the sources are not cited in the Wiki article. See WP:CITE -- Chuq 02:00, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

2 - Discussion of MHS (or any other schools') achievements or claims is not relevant to an article on Scotch College - any such discussion is most appropriately placed be in the relevant school's own article. MHS does have a high number of alumni in Who's Who - but this is not the article to mention that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.209.216.245 (talk • contribs) 09:08, 19 April 2006 indeed there are a number of very well known australian's who are part of the oldboys network- honnestly few if not any could compare - obviously this school accounts for the vast majority of examples of what australians can achieve if they apply themselves- nice work guys! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.104.225 (talk • contribs) 00:54, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Chair of Council
The Scotch College Chair of Council is no longer Michael Robinson AO. His successor is David Crawford as announced on Thursday 19th October 2006 at the Yr 12 speech night. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.132.54.102 (talk • contribs) 23:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Assessment
(Start/Top) Ive assessed the article as start class, given the lack of any information on the history of the school, some sections have little/no information. Top importance, the school has an extensive alumni list, a strong history, i was tempted to give it a high importance, but the Alumni section really swayed my opinion. Twenty Years 11:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised not to see anything (unless I missed it) about the move to Hawthorn GreenTony (talk) 00:59, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 14:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

House section
the "Cock" house (in the house section)??? is it actually named that or is it vandalism???Sheepunderscore (talk) 07:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

No it is genuine. It is an old scottish phrase as in the cock of the north. It does however cause much snickering in new students :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.12.97.94 (talk) 18:04, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Why were names of houses deleted?
Harro5 removed the list of house names, adding the comment to their edit: "this is school cruft, not notable".

I would question this, and think this deletion is dubious at best. I'm not quite sure enough of my position here to actually revert this on the spot, at least without looking more closely at Wikipedia policies - but I would want to get satisfactory answers to a few questions, such as: What is school cruft? How do you decide whether the deleted information is notable or not? And does the Wikipedia article about notability apply to just the subject of an article, to determine whether it merits having an article? - or does it apply to every single piece of information included in an article whose topic's notability is not questioned? If it's the latter, I would imagine that half of most articles would probably have to be deleted, thus reducing the amount of useful information in Wikipedia, and gutting it to just being a basic summary of its topics.

On the face of it, I would think that the names of the houses is information that would be useful within an article on Scotch College.

What do others think? I am going to think about it, and may restore the information later. M.J.E. (talk) 09:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a directory. I have deleted the lists of houses from several school articles, as readers gain no information from them. Each section essentially says:

"Like most schools in Australia, Scotch/Wesley/etc. has a house system. The following is a list of houses:


 * A (red)
 * B (blue)
 * C (green)

All are named after past headmasters or teachers. The houses compete in sport."


 * Only the last sentence could possibly be considered notable - in Scotch's case, the 'Cock Cup' is notable enough to be in the article. I think it is better to justify why such a list is necessary, rather than why it should otherwise be deleted as a list of names. This also applies for listing info in Australian school articles about uniforms, lists of clubs, or any other detail about non-notable facts that are standard across every school. Harr o 5 07:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Naming Students
I don't think it is necessary to include students names unless they are of particular interest. The Debating section for example, includes a number of names of students from the last few years simply because they won their competition. If this is the precedent, they why not include the names of the rowers from the last five first crews? The easiest solution is to avoid naming student unless they are of particular interest, for example if they appear on the List of Notable Old Scotch Collegians. KC (talk) 22:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Assessment 2
I have been asked to re-assess this article following a request at WP:WPSCH/A. I am maintaining the existing Top-importance rating; the alumni and national attention the school has had is enough to justify this. As a whole this is a well written article, and is of good enough quality to justify B-class. The main weakness, taking into account the importance of the school, is article length. Many sections seem short and incomplete. For example the history section needs to cover over 150 years, but is currently only a paragraph long. Some schools with this level of importance and age have enough material on history to justify a separate article, for example History of Baltimore City College. The campuses and extra-curricular activities should also be expanded, I would also suggest converting them to prose to flow better. Other possible missing sections can be found at WP:WPSCH/AG. The media descriptions section does not necessary, and may create neutrality concerns. It should probably be merged with the rest of the article or removed. Galleries with "random" images are discouraged per WP:IG; I would suggest creating one on Wikimedia Commons and then link it from the article using Commons. Camaron · Christopher · talk 16:03, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality and Wording
I have reinstated the tags which where previously added by another user. I believe some sections of the article can do with rewording as it appears that it is written in a non-neutral and in a mannar. If there are no further objections or discussion on this matter I will be starting to review and rewrite some sections next weekend (06/02/2010).

Any discussion about this matter would be greatly appeciated. Sheepunderscore (talk) 06:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

The tags were clearly a mischief by an anonymous user - eg, using all three tags is an overkill. I am mindful that the article has recently been reviewed by a British shools-project reviewer and there was a B rating for quality with no suggestion that it needs improvement to meet wiki standards or that it was an advertisement. As such I have removed the tags as they are unfairly taint an article that has received a good independent review. There have been some recent mischievous "peacock"-like changes which I have removed. Apart from that I am interested what you consider is NPOV? The media description citations are clearly neutral, written by independent third party sources - ie, two overseas newspapers and one national Australian newspaper. The alumni references are to articles which themselves have internal references, per wiki policy, and the Who's Who research is clearly cited over a number of studies. To state a cited fact should of itself not raise an NPOV concern just because the fact could be considered "impressive". I look forward to your suggested improvements in early Feb, and will assume good faith from someone I assume (from your recent edits) is an Old Wesley Collegian. Seqlder (talk) 11:19, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Who's Who references
Re recent change by Murtoa: I do not think it is appropriate to limit this interesting fact about the of the school by the suggested wording "In 1988..." as there is also the 1971 Hansen research, as well as the 2001 Fairfax (Sunday Mail) research in addition to the Peel/MacCalma research in 1988. All those had Scotch as the number one school. The refernces in the article make it clear to people when the research was undertaken so it does not need to say the date(s) in the relevant sentence in the actual article. I am not aware of any more recent research than the 2001 Fairfax, however I am aware of older research of Australian "elites" which used different samples than "Who's Who" (eg, Encel in the 1960s & 70s, and Higley/Deacon/Smart in 1979) which also had Scotch as the top school for producing "elites". Melbanian (talk) 10:42, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't deny it is an interesting fact, but in the absence of updated information it is simply incorrect to claim that "it has more alumni mentioned in Who's Who in Australia (a listing of notable Australians) than any other school". In 1988, it had more, and maybe in 1971 it had more.  The 2001 reference I believe relates to the same research undertaken by Peel and McCalman in 1988; that is, I don't believe it was updated in 2001 - the rankings for 1988 and 2001 appear identical and the 2001 article quotes McCalman.  In any case, it is simply not factual to assume that it remains the case in 2010.  It may do so, but we don't know - that is why I believe the statement should be conditioned to a past tense - maybe "studies over the years have found that".  I don't think it should be left as is.  Murtoa (talk) 13:19, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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