Section C: 1946-1995
5. Education and Community Facilities
- State Schools
- Secondary Schools
- Private Schools
- Monash University
- Churches and Community Change
- Waverley Park
5.1 State Schools
The enormous growth in the population of the area after World War 2 was accompanied by a dramatic rise in the number of schools. Besides education, the primary schools played a vital role in building community networks on the new housing estates. Children met at school, of course, but so, often, did their parents. Mothers in particular frequently began to set up fundraising, sporting and social groups through contacts made with other parents.
Jordanville South (SS 4678) and Ashwood (SS 4698) were both opened in 1953, largely to serve the growing population on the Jordanville estate. Jordanville South also took children from the Holmesglen Migrant Hostel and had the added community function of helping to introduce recent migrants to the mysteries of Australian culture and language.
Syndal (SS 4714) began in the Mount Waverley Horticultural Hall. This building had a venerable tradition as a focus for the orcharding community in the inter-war years. In 1954 the school moved to a site on what had been Mrs Peck's orchard on High Street Road and the school was officially opened in February 1955.
Growth in the population of East Oakleigh and Clayton was reflected in the opening of Huntingdale (SS 4716) in 1954 and Clayton (Brown's Road SS 4747) in 1956. A little further north, Amstel (SS 4801) opened in 1958. It was named for the Amstel Golf Course, in turn named for one of the earlier owners of the site, on the other side of Ferntree Gully Road. The golf course land was subdivided in 1965, further increasing the number of children in the area. Oakleigh South (SS 4823) was also opened in 1958 and Clayton West (SS 4840) in 1962.
The siting of these schools in the west and south of the area reflects the areas of most rapid population growth in the 1950s. From 1960, growth and schools began to move east in the areas both north and south of the Glen Waverley railway.
Glen Waverley Heights (SS 4836) opened in 1960, Pinewood on the Jennings Estate in 1961 (SS 4874) and Waverley North in 1962. (SS 4884). This pattern of more or less a new state school opening every year was continued into the early 1970s. Syndal South opened in 1964, Mount View in 1965 and Syndal North and Sussex Heights both opened in 1967. Brentwood and Highvale opened in 1969 as development moved east of Springvale Road and Brandon Park, Glendale and Monash opened in the early 1970s.
Just as new schools are characteristic of new suburbs, so the closing of schools is characteristic of ageing suburbs. By the 1990s the children born in Waverley in the boom years of growth were long grown and most had left the area to form households of their own. Declining numbers of children meant a reduced need for schools. This pattern of the ageing of the suburb was compounded by the fall in the birth rate compared to the baby boom of the postwar years.[32] Schools closed and in a number of cases the sites were sold for housing, particularly medium density housing. They became part of a general pattern in the late 1980s and 1990s where surplus government land from a number of uses was sold. The overall impact was generally to increase the density of housing in the older areas of the City of Monash.
5.2 Secondary Schools
In the 1940s and 1950s, the dramatic growth of Waverley and Oakleigh coincided with a dramatic increase throughout Victoria in the provision of state funded post-primary education. Before World War 2 there was no state provision for post-primary education in Mulgrave or Oakleigh.
Oakleigh Technical School was the first of the new wave of schools. It opened in 1946 on a site donated by the council in 1941. Jordanville Technical School opened in 1954 on a site between Damper and Gardiner's Creeks. The school found this a disadvantage and was pleased when in the process of continued housing development Damper Creek was replaced by a drain and Gardiner's Creek was diverted. This made' grounds improvement' possible. Both technical schools predated the first high school in the area, perhaps an indication of the perceived social status of working class Oakleigh and the Jordanville Housing Commission estate.
But the area did get high schools. Oakleigh High School opened in 1955, Holmes glen (later Jordanville and later still called Waverley High School) opened in 1956, Ashwood in 1958, Huntingdale in 1959 and Glen Waverley in 1960. Two further technical schools were also built in this era, Syndal in 1959 and Clayton in 1961. Again the pattern followed the spread of housing, but with a greater time delay, to give the children time to grow old enough to go to secondary school. Mount Waverley High School opened in 1964 and the grounds came to include a 'mallee area' planted with native trees and shrubs. Monash opened in 1965, Syndal in 1967 and Brentwood and Medina Road both opened in 1969.[33]
5.3 Private Schools
The City of Monash has a number of private schools, some of which occupy considerable areas of land. Several moved to the area after World War 2, partly because they needed the extra space and partly because their catchment population was moving east with the growth of the suburb.
Huntingtower School was founded in 1927 in Malvern and, unusually for a private school, was co-educational. In 1953 the school, which included primary and secondary age students, moved to Mount Waverley. Until 1976, students came from families attending the Christian Science Church.
Wesley College, founded to serve the Methodist community, began in Prahran. After World War 2 that campus was becoming increasingly cramped and the college looked east for room to expand. The junior campus in Waverley opened in 1966 and later included a secondary school. In 1980, Caulfield Grammar opened a campus at Wheelers Hill. Like Huntingtower and Wesley, this catered for both primary and secondary pupils.
The City of Monash also has a number of important Catholic schools. Salesian Secondary College on Moroney's Hill and the Sacred Heart Girls College, Oakleigh, both opened in 1957. The Sacred Heart Primary School is much older, dating from 1936. In 1970, the Salesian Theological College opened, across the road from the secondary campus. Avila, Mazenod and Mannix Colleges also serve the area, the latter with its distinctive building shapes looks across Wellington Road to Monash University.[34]
5.4 Monash University
The campus was officially opened in March 1961 by Premier Henry Bolte, at which stage it was a muddy building site in a windy paddock. Robert Blackwood, an engineer and general manager of Dunlop had been appointed the first chairman of Monash University's Interim Council. The university was set up both to take some of the pressure off Melbourne University for general places and to provide advanced technical education. There was to be a particular emphasis on science and its application to industry - hence Blackwood and hence also the decision to christen the university after a soldier and engineer.[35]
The siting of the university can only be described as strange. Access to the nearest stations was not straightforward and neither were the bus services. As a result, car parks became a major feature of the campus from an early date. The university was not within easy walking distance of either Oakleigh or Clayton shopping centres and the surrounding three bedroom houses, each in its own garden, each with its own family, were not a promising prospect for student accommodation. So Monash became a drive-in university, fitting companion to the drive-in shopping centre of Chadstone just up the road. It was opened a few months earlier, also by Premier Bolte.[36]
Monash added more than buildings and car parks to the landscape of Waverley. There was also a very determined campaign to add trees. Initially, the site was absolutely typical of the area. 'To moderate the devastating effects of the wind, the second great elemental force of the hilltop, lines of trees had been planted which were the main feature of the landscape: a great row of pines northsouth, a horrible mixture of funeral cypresses alternating with mahogany gums east-west, and several subsidiary lines of cypresses, variegated and pencil.'[37] There was also an avenue of oaks leading to the buildings that had been the Talbot Epileptic Colony plus some other mature exotic trees.
John Marshall, Professor of Zoology, and a small group who shared his enthusiasm for native flora and fauna planned to plant the campus with native trees. This was not at all straightforward. Poor drainage and the clay and the wind conspired against the plants, as did those members of the university community opposed to the 'plant native' campaign. But Marshall and his supporters won in the end. One of their early successes was Snake Gully, a native preserve accessible only to zoologists.[38] Elsewhere, native plantings came to predominate, but the 'look' was still European, the courtyards and buildings framed by car parks, not bush.
5.5 Churches and Community Change
A number of Monash's older churches have already been mentioned. As with schools, the rapid growth in population after World War 2 was followed by a growth in the number of churches and other community buildings. Overwhelmingly, these were Anglo-Celtic structures in appearance, if not in congregations. The various protestant denominations were well represented. So was the Catholic Church, which enjoyed a marked increase in congregations with the arrival of southern European migrants.
In 1967, a chapel of the Greek Orthodox Church of St Anargyroi opened in Oakleigh. In 1973, this was replaced by a church and in 1983 the Greek Orthodox College of St Anargyroi opened. From the 1980s, there were Greek senior citizens clubs in both Oakleigh and Waverley.[40]
The diverse nature of the population is, in fact, much better represented in the clubs and societies than in the buildings and plants of Monash. The City is a multi-cultural society with thriving Armenian, Chinese. Greek, Hindu Saraswati, Italian and Polish clubs and societies, but buildings that represent this diversity are far less common. When the Coptic Church opened in 1982, for instance, it did so in the former Presbyterian Church on Drummond Street, bringing no distinctive Coptic architecture to the area.
Despite the increasingly diverse ethnic mix in Monash, the landscape remains largely Anglo-Celtic. A hint of different priorities about house size versus garden size could be seen in some of the 1990s developments in the southeast corner of the city, but the southern and eastern European influence on the landscape was generally very limited and the Asian influence smaller still.
Sophie Watson and Alec McGillivray have noted a similar pattern in parts of Sydney. It is possible that future changes in planning perspectives may see greater modifications to the Anglo-Celtic environment.[41]
5.6 Waverley Park
Photo C10 shows VFL Park as planned in 1968. Originally, a rail line was also proposed to improve access. The idea was to provide an alternative venue to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for VFL (later AFL) grand finals. The MCG was not always co-operative over use of their grounds by the VFL.
Shortage of finance and town planning constraints meant that the huge area of covered stands and seating capacity of 166,000 were never achieved. Money was also saved on the playing surface and the carparks remained unsealed in 1996. Improvements were, however, eventually made to the playing surface. But the site remained controversial and grand finals continued to be held at the MCG with its greater seating capacity and better access.
Despite this, Waverley Park was a success. It improved the bargaining power of the VFL in negotiations with the MCG and tens of thousands of spectators frequently flocked to Waverley for football games and other events and even, on occasion, opera. The Park is a prominent landmark, one of Waverley's most important community centres and probably the best known feature of the area for most of Melbourne's inhabitants. Appropriately, it was built by AVJennings.[39]
Reviewed: 20 February 2010
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