‘Do-nothing Thursdays’ annoy parents, staff at one of Melbourne’s most elite schools

Parents at one of Melbourne’s most expensive private schools have hit out at the school’s academic-free period, called “do-nothing Thursdays”, saying they’re “paying a lot of money” for kids not to be taught.

An afternoon off dubbed by some as “Do-nothing Thursdays” continues to frustrate many staff and parents at one of Melbourne’s most expensive private schools.

The controversial new Scotch College program called Scotch Explore involves two additional academic-free periods on Thursday afternoons.

Year 11 and 12s are able to do private study on campus or at home, year 9s and 10s have supervised studies, year 8s do activities such as AFL development, art exploration, chess mastery and film-making and year 7s do sport.

The initiative, brought in by new principal Scott Marsh in 2025, was designed to give staff additional class preparation and personal development time. In a novel twist, executive members, including Dr Marsh, are tasked with supervising senior students.

The controversial new Scotch College program called Scotch Explore involves two additional academic-free periods on Thursday afternoons. Picture: Tony Gough

One unimpressed teacher said “most of the middle and senior school students just went home at lunch time” as there were no scheduled activities.

“Thursdays are turning out to be what everyone, parents and teachers alike, feared the most,” they said.

“It’s just unproductive time off for students, costly time away from their academic timetable, and extra unproductive load on teaching staff, clearly unsupported by their executive.

Another source said the program was viewed by senior students as “an afternoon off” with “a mass exodus of students heading home”.

One parent said it was “not too bad for year 12s” and that students “appreciate the study info sessions run by psychologists on Thursday afternoons”.

Another parent said: “I think we are paying a lot of money for our kids to be given time off and not to be taught. Older established staff have left and there are a lot of new young teachers and students have made complaints about the quality of the teachers — it’s a disgrace.”

Another parent calculated he is paying $80 a week for “missed lessons”, given the school’s $45,000 annual fees in year 12.

The initiative, brought in by new principal Scott Marsh in 2025, was designed to give staff additional class preparation and personal development time.

The Herald Sun has been told by a number of staff that morale is low at the historic, prestigious school and the leadership is unpopular.

Some staff were frustrated at the lack of consultation over the timetable changes, but others believe change was “overdue” and welcome the time off.

The Independent Education Union “the IEU believes that good workplace consultation is essential and that we will continue to support and advise our members at Scotch”.

A spokeswoman for Scotch College said the Scotch Explore program “has been introduced with great success this year”.

“Not only are students benefiting from increased time in core subjects and languages, they are also discovering new interests and skills in a broad range of areas including banking and financial literacy, self-defence, language conversation, chess, maths extension and young leadership programs, sports and more,” she said.

“At the VCE level, the improvements to our provision introduced this year have also allowed increased overall lesson time for our students.”