The Melos Education Ltd

A Vision for the Future: The Melos Group

This page provides an overview of the formation and future direction of Melos Education Ltd. This organisation was born from plans initiated by Green Point Christian College in 2019 that sought to establish a group of schools that would allow an educational partnership strengthening the cause of Christian Education in our region and beyond.

The core purpose was based on an approach that would see Churches or other founding school bodies modify the governance and company ownership of their school such that their focus could be re-directed to the ministry partnership with the school rather than on governance and operational obligations. While schools retain their Registration and Accreditation independence while a member of The Melos Group, a common board governs the operations of each member school.

The name of the organisation, Melos Education Ltd, is derived from the body metaphor of Scripture in which each part adds to and strengthens the whole. (Melos being Greek for ‘body’)

Background Context 

Over the past few years, a new concept has been emerging in the Australian Christian school sector. Traditionally, schools have been independent and while some may operate a second campus or preschool, very few groups or systems of schools existed. However, a new model is emerging both in Australia and internationally where schools, form a group which brings security and strength to each member. This also allows opportunity for new schools to be birthed by the Group.

Christian schools face growing numbers of challenges today:

• Increasing compliance and legislative demands create a significant burden on administration and the expertise of staff.
• A changing political climate and growing societal antagonism towards Christian schooling (indeed all things Christian) means the assurances of funding and political support may no longer be as certain as they once were.
• The demands of governance expertise and responsibility are making it harder to get willing and appropriately capable people from school company memberships to sit on boards.
• Churches which birthed small schools to support their own members’ children often now have responsibility for large schools that consume pastors’ and Church members’ time and energy and can drain expertise and volunteers from other Church ministries.
• Some schools are facing declining enrolments and financial challenges that result in stress and time on the part of the Church to resolve.
• Relational conflicts between boards and Principals can compromise a Church leader’s role as pastor and consume time and energy.
• An independent school can face challenges of leadership competency, and the board are left to manage a difficult situation which can take time and energy from volunteer board members.
• Increased parental and societal expectations on schools mean they must be constantly evolving and moving forwards, and this can be a drain on a school leader’s energy and focus to have vision for the future and maintain daily operations.
• The experience of many Churches that have established schools over the past 40 years is that governance issues take priority over ministry opportunities, diluting the opportunity for Church and school to serve together.
• Schools with no direct link to a local Church may become vulnerable as pioneer founders move on.

New Models

It is considering these challenges, and the growing opportunities that are arising as people look for the values and safety of Christian schools, that has led the founders of Melos Education Ltd to consider new models and ways of doing schooling. Joining together with others is one way of strengthening individual schools. This can provide access to greater expertise, reducing governance demands and utilising wider experience which will help to give long term stability and security.

In the past we saw Churches establishing schools – it is possible in the future we will see schools established and churches growing out of those schools as is already happening in Australia and Hong Kong for example. As the current paradigm of schooling changes, a group is better placed to experiment with new paradigms of schooling without endangering an individual school’s very existence.

MELOS EDUCATION LTD - A NEW APPROACH

Overview

In response to this identified need, Melos Education Ltd (formerly the Melos Foundation) was formed and incorporated as a public company limited by guarantee on 6 March 2020. Melos Education Limited is also registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission (ACNC) as a charity with the sub-types ‘advancing education’ and ‘advancing religion’ at the same time.

In 2023, due to requests relating to federal funding compliance, Melos Education Ltd was established and subsequently took over the function of the Melos Foundation. The organisation is now commonly known as the Melos Group. The Group currently consists of Christian Schools, but membership is open to any Christian educational entity from pre-schools to tertiary institutions.

The Melos Group was established to support the growth of an educational partnership to strengthen the cause of Christian education by:

• Taking over the governance and senior management of the schools participating in the model and,
• Providing a range of leadership and business services to each participating entity to support their strategic and daily operations and
• Seeking ways to obtain cost saving and operational efficiencies and
• Ensuring each school flourishes and fulfills its purpose as a Christian organisation.

Overarching Structure

MEL is the holding company for all members and while each retains their distinctive identity via individual registration and accreditation, school, name, uniform etc, they are governed by the MEL board.

Applicant institutions (Christian schools and other Christian educational institutions) apply for membership and if agreed between their existing board and the MEL board, they appoint MEL as the proprietor of their entity and then move the entity into MEL itself. Current assets and liabilities are retained by the individual entity while being held in the MEL company.

Company members of the applicant institution are offered company membership of Melos Education Ltd.

Benefits of a Group Approach

The Melos Group see the following benefits arising from a group of Christian education entities coming together:

1. Capable and strategic governance helps to secure the future of each entity in the group. By establishing a structure that allows for the recruiting of experienced, skilled, and visionary people, we help to assure the on-going vision and strength of each entity.
2. The body image in Scripture is about all working together to support and strengthen each other. A group of educational entities adds strength to each member, allows for support for a smaller member, gives opportunity for sharing expertise and allows for potential economies of scale with combined services.
3. Churches often find their human resources diluted due to the demands of school governance. By relieving the Church of this role, a greater focus can go into the ministry opportunity a Christian school or pre-school brings.
4. In an era of increasing compliance and accountability demands, a group can utilise common policies and practices to meet such demands without diluting the time and resources of personnel in each entity. This allows the focus to be kept on education rather than compliance.
5. While independent entities can and do work together in different ways now, belonging to a common structure under common leadership and governance, gives an impetus to cooperation and leads to a mutual strengthening of quality in each member.

Current Structure

The Melos Group has learnt a lot in the years since commencement. What has emerged quite quickly and been driven by the Federal Government ‘s Schools Funding Department and the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), is a preference on their part for all schools in a group to be under one company structure. As a result, the following structure has been developed and adopted by MEL:

1. A single company owns and operates all participating entities including schools. This company is Melos Education Ltd.
2. MEL is the Approved Funding Authority (Proprietor) for all participating schools.
3. The Group charges member entities a base fee to cover fixed office and governance costs and a variable fee for the tailored services it might offer to individual schools. This keeps faith with Section 83c of the NSW Education Act.
4. Individual participating schools (or entities) are still separately registered and accredited (or other entities) and receive their own fees. The central funding agent (MEL) approves budgets and ensures all schools have appropriate operating annual budgets.
5. Capital works are better able to be funded by this model and loans and other financial instruments such as insurances can be more easily obtained at a more competitive rate on a group basis than as individual schools.
6. One board governs the entire group thus alleviating the complexity of multiple companies and associated compliance regulation requirements.
7. All existing company members of an applying entity are offered membership of Melos Education Ltd thus expanding their interest beyond their own entity to all entities in the group.