Melbourne High students face portables, remote learning over ‘extreme’ safety concerns

Students at one of Melbourne’s most prestigious state schools face being shifted into portables or forced into COVID-era remote learning as the education department scrambles to address “extreme” safety concerns with the campus.

Melbourne High School will host a crisis meeting between school delegates and department officials on Friday, after teachers threatened to walk off the job over safety concerns arising from the dilapidated buildings.

The school has received some high-profile backing in their fight from trucking magnate and Melbourne High old boy Lindsay Fox.

Issues with the school centre on its three-storey Gothic-style “Twenties Building”, built in 1927, which has been identified as water damaged for more than a decade. It is among seven buildings at the South Yarra site with leaking roofs and its rusted window frames are pushing concrete off the walls.

School estimates for the almost 100-year-old institution’s refurbishment range from $50 to $100 million.

The education department’s health and safety officer categorised the risk from flaking lead paint, structural building damage, defunct fire alert systems and aged electrical infrastructure as “extreme” when he visited in May.

“Multiple areas of the schools’ buildings are showing signs of compromised structural integrity,” the report found.

Flaking lead paint was found in “multiple internal areas within the school, including student locker spaces and corridors of transit. Exposure and potential harm to human health occurs primarily by inhaling paint dust when it becomes disturbed (flakes).”

The officer recommended that the state building authority, which last month received a scathing assessment from the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office for its funding decisions, rectify those issues as quickly as possible.

School staff then issued the education department with 11 WorkSafe provisional improvement notices (PINs) on July 17 in response to what they saw as a failure to act, threatening to stop work if the government didn’t commit to resolving the safety issues within eight days.

Staff rescinded the PINs on July 21 after the department agreed to meet to discuss their concerns and committed to fixing the “extreme” safety issues.

Melbourne High is the only select-entry public school for boys in the state, enrolling about 330 year 9 students annually from thousands of applicants.

Prahran Liberal Party MP Rachel Westaway said the institution had been “left to rot” and staff and students deserve better.

Dechlan Ellis, a Melbourne High old boy, engineer and former army officer, recently resigned from his position on the school resources committee when it was decided to pause any escalation of the school’s complaints beyond the education department.

Ellis, who was approached for comment, told a school council meeting he could not stay in the role given the current risk to students.

Two sources, with knowledge of the meeting who spoke to this masthead on conditions of anonymity, said Ellis had drafted letters detailing the safety issues to Stonnington Council, state safety officers and WorkSafe but quit when it was decided they wouldn’t be sent.

“Dechlan would like the risk removed immediately and the only way to do that is to put us into remote learning,” said one source.

The education department official who visited Melbourne High in May did so at the school’s request after dozens of attempts to secure funding to address the problems had failed.

Half a dozen reports, four produced by the school and two by the education department, between 2020 and 2025, and seen by this masthead, detail thousands of defects ranging from water damage to major structural issues.

One contractor who visited the school in September 2025 found 24 of 30 paint samples it tested contained lead.

Another contractor found 77 per cent of electrical sub-circuits had no working safety switch – including those accessible to students.

“Many of these circuits have faulty wiring, including exposed live conductors and metal conduits which have become live. Many exit and emergency lights are not working due to upstream wiring faults. The old and faulty wiring also presents a fire risk. In total, the old wiring and faults present a danger to building occupants,” their report read.

The May report, by the education department’s health and safety officer, raised concerns that between 2020 and 2025 Melbourne High had received an improved Rolling Facilities Evaluation (RFE) score, a number the Victorian School Building Authority uses to decide on funding.

“The question needs to be asked,” the report says. “What works were undertaken between 2020 and 2025 that helped improve the school’s overall RFE score?”

Three people with operating knowledge of the school but not authorised to speak publicly, said during that time “some work on classrooms” was conducted and new toilets installed.

“In terms of the big ticket items: no fire, no electrical, no work on the windows, no work on the lead paint, no work on the render, no work on the concrete spalling. Nothing,” one said.

In 2020, a report produced by the education department identified a total of 936 defects. Of those, two were top priority and should have been fixed within six months, and 77 were priority two and needed fixing in 12 months.

By 2025, the same reporting process found 1058 defects – 149 were priority one and should have been fixed within six months, 569 were priority two and were due to be fixed within 12 months.

Melbourne High School was not among the 10 schools approved for high-priority upgrades in the most recent financial year.

An education department spokesperson did not respond directly to detailed questions about how the funding decisions had been made.

“The health and safety of all staff and students is our highest priority, and there is no threat to safety at Melbourne High School,” they said.

“The government has invested more than $675,000 in maintenance at the school and we respond promptly when safety issues are identified – with works undertaken as recently as July 28.

“We’re working with the school to deliver necessary works with minimal disruption to students and teachers,” the spokesperson said.

The $675,000 was for roof and plumbing remediation across multiple buildings before December 2024.

Fox, a Melbourne High beneficiary known to land his helicopter on the oval, called on the government to act for a school that “produced future leaders”.

“They’re a working-class group of people that have come through and become extremely well-educated at the school and great ambassadors,” he said.

“We’re fortunate to have a building like that for education in Melbourne.”

Friday’s meeting will focus primarily on the need for portables in 2027 and the consideration of remote learning if the safety issues aren’t urgently resolved.

Fortnightly consultation will then begin to address fire and electrical issues, the containment of lead paint and falling render and push for a multimillion-dollar refurbishment of the school.

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