Mt. Clear Secondary College

I attended Mt. Clear Secondary College between 1993 and 1996, completing my Victorian Certificate of Education in 1995 (Year 11) and 1996 (Year 12). Secondary school normally takes six years, but I completed it in four years after skipping Years 9 and 10. I was advanced due to academic promise.

Mt. Clear Secondary College is located in Mt. Clear, a suburb 10 minutes out of Ballarat, Victoria. As the diagram shows (from the Ballarat Tourism Directory), Ballarat is a 1.5 hour drive west-north-west of Melbourne, the capital of Victoria. Formerly named Mt. Clear Technical High School, the school was formed in 1973 by the amalgamation of the girls' and boys' tech schools. The school has a unique bushland setting, backing as it does onto the Canadian Forest and with a radiata pine plantation within walking distance. Because of this, Mt. Clear is often the host school for the regional secondary school cross-country running championships.

But, since this is not the official Mt. Clear Sec. Col. Web Page, I am going to talk about what I most strongly recall about Mt. Clear. What is probably my strongest memory is L4, a classroom on the top floor of the Lalor building. L4 was the VCE maths classroom and was presided over by Mr. Robert Walter George Rook, one of the best teachers I have had and who has since moved on to greener pastures. Mr. Rook was also the only teacher who would, on a regular basis, drive the half-hour round-trip to the nearest McDonalds (20 minutes driving and 10 minutes in the drive--thru while the incompetent staff screw up your order). My Year 12 friends and I would sit in the room at lunch and eat our $5 worth of chips from the fish'n'chip shop while reading or doing homework or assignments or role-playing Star Trek simulations. Apart from a select few, no one was allowed into L4 (no one was supposed to be in there at all, but as long as no one was killed no teachers would object). I spent most of my lunchtimes up in that room, except when I was fulfilling the group's standing order at the canteen. I also spent the majority of my classroom hours during Year 12 in that room, taking two maths as part of my five subjects.