Glen Waverley twenty years on
Founders’ Day, our very own May Day (it falls on 1 May), but with a somewhat less turbulent political edge, is always a cause for celebratory assemblies at each of Wesley’s three Melbourne campuses. This year was particularly so for the Senior School at the Glen Waverley campus, honouring its own Great Leap Forward as it looked back upon the two decades since its inception; in 1993, the graduation of the first Year 12 class marked the end of a period of historic development at the site which, two decades before that, had been ear-marked as the place to house the whole of Wesley College, as the school faced a number of demographic and financial realities.
The Glen Waverley Senior School, the last great enterprise in David Prest’s remarkable re-developing and re-making of Wesley in so many ways, (and not just in buildings), opened for business in 1992, with 212 Year 11 students, just in time to welcome a new Principal, Glen McArthur. The twentieth anniversary this year honours the completion of Prest’s vision, to give each campus a life of its own, and, once the decision was made in 1970 not to sell St Kilda Road, and not to abandon the Syndal holdings to developers either, Prest had been determined to make each place a more satisfying whole, not the same except in structure and offerings, and with distinctive characteristics. It is that distinctiveness, held within the integrated family of Wesley College, which was at least part of the cause for celebration this past Founders’ Day. Prest’s comprehensive plans were largely implemented by the two Heads of Campus at this time, Barbara Lynch (Glen Waverley), and Tony Conabere (St Kilda Road, or Prahran at it was then known).
Both Barbara Lynch and David Prest were fittingly the principal speakers at this Founders’ Day assembly, and were able to provide the present students with some historical understanding of the school they now inhabit and, because they are kids, doubtless take for granted. Surely it’s always been this way? But to know properly who we are, it is important to know the forces and ideas that shaped us. Conabere had overseen the extension of the campus offerings in the 1980s, through to the end of Middle School, but moved to the older campus as Head in 1986. Barbara Lynch arrived at Glen Waverley in the same year, as his replacement, and supervised the campus though its last great developmental phase. A mathematician, Barbara had an astonishing eye for detail and a meticulously focused energy, and her planning was instrumental in the design process for the new building, begun under Daryl Jackson in 1988. It was to be that campus’s only foray into any kind of architectural grandeur. One of Prest’s enduring strengths was his knack of finding the right people for what needed doing, and he understood that Barbara was indeed the Lynch-pin required for this final emphatic move forward, and going hand-in-hand with the coeducation previously established.
The newness of the Glen Waverley Senior College (the nomenclature has changed in recent years), and its attractiveness as a wellplanned and imaginative learning environment, was a selling point to parents. Emerging from Barbara Lynch’s initial comprehensive brief, the architects produced a very modern space with an internal quadrangle to pull together, like the village greens of old, the variety of shapes and spaces surrounding it; it aimed to be “aesthetically pleasing, innovative…an exciting and stimulating place for students and staff”. Very importantly, the architects saw the new building as “the completion of the College as a four-part academic offering”. Twenty years on, David Prest will still argue energetically for the need to bring Glen Waverley into line with its older brother (soon to be sister as well) at Prahran, offering all the opportunities for a complete education at a single Wesley campus. No longer would students enrolled at Glen Waverley be required to pull up stumps and trek daily into the city for the final years of their education. The “equity and fairness” arguments for expansion were always clearly understood. The St Kilda Road campus incidentally went the other way and, under Tony Conabere, developed its structure back to the early years of learning. And that is a story in itself.
Barbara had oversight of a campus transformed, and in her speech emphasised the special planning required to satisfy the needs of an expanded student cohort, as she dealt with details like the numbers of library books needed, along with hockey sticks, footballs and chemicals for the laboratories. Thankfully, barely the smallest detail escaped her scrutiny in the planning, and she also included the soon-to-be senior students in her comprehensive briefings, giving a whole new resonance to the term “bums on seats” by inviting students on stage at assemblies to try out the classroom furniture. There was no problem with “bums on seats” in its other iteration; long waiting lists accompanied all the excitement and expectancy of this radical development.
Look carefully at the Senior School building at Glen Waverley, and you will see how the desire of Daryl Jackson and the architects to encode the history and continuity of Wesley College in bricks and mortar (and steel) has been achieved. The squat modern towers reflect the original “grey towers” of old, and the links with historic Wesley are thereby articulated. We may inhabit different parts of our metropolis, but at the core “all of us are one”. That alone was something to celebrate once again on this most recent Founders’ Day.
