From the Principal

This week, our Year 7 students enthusiastically participated in their three-day St Omer Experience, which is a significant component of the College’s Year 7 transition program. 

For background, St Omer lived in northern France in the 6th Century, establishing the French, predominately Catholic town now known as Saint-Omer. It was in the early 1600s that one of our Founders, Mary Ward, spent time in Saint-Omer. It is also in Saint-Omer that the Jesuit College was first established around 1593, which has direct lineage to the oldest Jesuit school in the world today, Stonyhurst in England. The Jesuit College’s purpose in Saint-Omer was to provide a safe place of education to the sons of English recusant Catholic families, at a time when such schooling was illegal in the boys’ home country. 

Over the course of four years, Mary Ward travelled to and from Saint-Omer, which, at the time, was growing with Catholic refugees fleeing persecution from former King Henry VIII’s forever changed England. It was in Saint-Omer that Mary Ward first established her institute focused mainly on the education of girls, many being the sisters of the boys being educated at the Jesuit College. Importantly, and particularly counter-cultural at the time, was Mary Ward’s refusal to adopt the rule of enclosure, which increasingly drew curiosity and even suspicion from some. 

Why the ‘St Omer Experience’ for our Year 7 students?

For Mary Ward, her time in Saint-Omer was a time of mixed emotion. It was a troubling time; a time of great introspection and searching and also a time of revelation, a time of great clarity, clarity about the need for a counter-cultural response to religious life and education. Underpinning this clarity was the revelation that ‘service’ should be the hallmark of her newly established charism and to truly be ‘of service’, connection with community was paramount. 

It is with this in mind, that our Year 7 St Omer experience focuses, through a range of engaging and challenging activities, on building positive relationships, overcoming personal challenges and reinforcing our College values. 

Finally, we are looking forward to hosting our Year 7 Parents’ Welcome tonight. At the time of writing, the final touches are being made to what will no doubt be an excellent opportunity for our Year 7 parents to build connection through strengthened relationships.

Daniel Mahon

Principal