Ballarat Clarendon College's Yuulong campus will welcome its first students in term one 2022

The school bought the 40 hectare property, west of Cape Otway, in 2019 as a new home for its year nine residential program which had previously run at King Island.

Construction on the multi-million dollar project is almost complete with the first students travelling there for a 56-day stay on February 14.

"It's a pretty spectacular site, it really is, and it's a continuation of our year nine program which ran for many years at King Island in Tasmania which, for a number of reasons ... we decided to relocate to Victoria," said Greg Ashman, who from January will be deputy principal at the school.

The buildings the school used on King Island were originally built to house mine workers and families, and with the mine reopening and the facilities needing considerable investment to improve the decision was made to find a new site.

The purpose-built Yuulong site is environmentally friendly, with a 99KW solar system to offset some of the site's power requirements, water and electricity monitoring for the dormitories and commons buildings, LED lighting and water tanks. All of the campus buildings utilise passive ventilation for cooling through the use of louvers, windows and large window sliders.

Students will be able to monitor their own water and electricity usage in their dormitories and adjust habits to make most efficient use of power and water.

"We've made it as sustainable as possible ... and want them to think about their place in the world, the world's future and their place in that," Mr Ashman said.

Four groups of students will each spend 56 days at Yuulong - one group per term.

"The idea is to give students a little bit of time for reflection out of their comfort zones," Mr Ashman said.

Students will take part in different activities and challenges including surfing and hiking, partner with local organisations and landowners, and be involved in planning and preparing meals and other life skills.

"It's meant to be quite a soulful program with time for reflection and taking time out from what can be, for teens, a very hectic, very busy world where information pops up instantly all the time."

Mobile phones will be banned.

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Mr Ashman said he was looking forward to building stronger relationships with the local community.

"The local community has been very positive. I think they are keen to have economic activity," he said. The school will source as much of their needs as possible from the surrounding communities along the south coast.

"It's difficult to bring a new project and infrastructure to the area because of the various fire regulations and requirements like that. We have to be very careful and we have built a fire bunker on our campus."

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