Parade College

Parade College is a Catholic all-boys multi-campus secondary school, run under the auspices of the Congregation of Christian Brothers and Edmund Rice Education Australia. The school has two campuses in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria; one at Bundoora; the other, eight kilometres away at Preston.The school was founded by five Christian Brothers in January 1871. They had taught for two years in a small school behind St Francis’ Church in Lonsdale Street before moving into the bluestone building in Victoria Parade, East Melbourne. The school's official name was CBC East Melbourne but it was generally known as Parade College. About one hundred boys enrolled on the first day and this number grew steadily over the years. This building was affectionately known as the "Old Bluestone Pile" and the school song takes its name from this building.Eventually in 1953 it became necessary to move the junior classes to a site newly acquired by the Old Paradians Association at Alphington. In 1968 further expansion was necessary and the college moved to a site of on Plenty Road, Bundoora. The old school premises in East Melbourne were taken over by Cathedral College (this school closed in 1995). In 1988, the junior classes at Alphington were moved to Bundoora and all three campuses occupied the spacious grounds large enough to give each campus its own recreational areas. In 2009 Parade opened a second campus in Preston. This had formerly been a long-established school, Marist College Preston which had been renamed Redden College before becoming Samaritan Catholic College. This new campus of Parade Years offers 7–9 classes as well as the Year 10 Edmund Rice Pathways Program and Year 11 VCAL studies.