The school that came back from the brink and is now at the top of town

A decade ago, Mount Alexander College was on its knees.

The Flemington high school had developed a poor reputation, enrolments were dwindling, and, despite its long history, there was talk from the Education Department of shutting the old place down.

But MAC, as the locals know it, is now almost unrecognisable from its struggle years, with a new state-of-the-art high-rise campus and consistently outstanding VCE academic performances.

The MAC is also in demand. Enrolments have nearly doubled from 440 in 2015 to 820 this year, pushing the new $23 million building – with stunning city views from the top floors – close to capacity.

With its reputation in the rapidly gentrifying inner-west flying high, families from as far afield as Taylors Lakes and Craigieburn have been trying to get their children a place at the Flemington Road landmark.

Mount Alexander College is The Age’s 2025 Schools that Excel award winner for western Melbourne based on improvements in its VCE results over the past decade.

The annual series celebrates schools that achieve outstanding advancement in their VCE results.

MAC’s median study score has been climbing steadily for a decade, going from 26 in 2015 to 30 in 2024.

The number of students enrolled in year 12 subjects has also surged over this period, more than doubling from 47 in 2015 to 119 in 2024.

Principal Dani Angelico says the turnaround in the school’s fortunes can be traced to her predecessor, Wayne Haworth, who took the helm in 2015 and steered MAC on a new course – from a traditional approach to “student-led, student-centred education” with a new “vertical” curriculum offering pupils more than 100 electives.

The approach was called the “Templestowe model” after its creator Peter Hutton used it to turn around another struggling high school, Templestowe College, a few years before Haworth arrived at Mount Alexander.

The model puts the children at the centre of everything the school does, Angelico explains.

“The kids drive a lot of the decisions in the school, which is super-nice, we have kids on teacher selection panels, they help us write policies, there’s a lot of student-led activity events,” she said.

The new ways introduced by Haworth were not for everybody, though.

“Some teachers left, because [Haworth] was challenging them to actually rethink this whole teacher-in-control, drives-all-the-learning, top-down approach,” Angelico said.

“So for the teachers who had been here for a long time, they found it really challenging, and some of them left.”

The current crop of MAC teachers, many of whom were drawn to the school by its student centred-ethos, are committed to the program and the driving force of the school renaissance, Angelico said.

“We’ve got really great staff here, and our retention is pretty good,” the principal said.

But the Flemington area has not changed that much. The public housing high-rises are still an integral part of the community, there are substantial pockets of poverty, and Angelico frankly acknowledges that things can get complex when “a large number of our enrolments come from disadvantaged backgrounds”.

“But whether you come from the flats or you live in a multimillion-dollar house, when you walk through the gates of MAC, you are a MAC student, you’re no different to anyone else,” she says.

“And the kids really feel that expectation of achievement and reaching their full potential.”

The new building is a huge help in the school’s journey, Angelico says, well worth the “hell” in the makeshift senior secondary campus at a local primary school during construction from 2021 to 2023.

Year 11 student Amelia Kenny is taking VCE politics this year and hopes to eventually study business or science at the University of Melbourne.

She says the student-centred approach is helping to give her a good shot at getting there.

“It’s one of the best things about MAC, our student-centred approach is really what sets us apart from a lot of different high schools,” Kenny said.

“We have so many student ideas that we incorporate into our learning, our electives are amazing because students help come up with them and design them.

“Part of the reason that I’m succeeding the way I am at MAC is our approach to how we pick teachers. They are really passionate about the work that they do, and I adore all of my classes because of the teachers that we have and the way we learn.

“So I think I’m definitely on track to get a good ATAR.”

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