From the Principal

OUR GREAT NORTHERN SUBURBS

In 1964 a carload of Good Samaritan Sisters from Northcote and a train laden with young Year 7 girls began St Monica’s College, Epping, a Catholic girls’ College for the daughters of the folk of the northern suburbs of Melbourne.  Thus began our wonderful sixty-two year history, a School of Educational Enterprise was born.

Today, St Monica’s College, Epping remains proud of the northern suburbs we serve, and always at the behest of the families who are Monican.  From our original parishes of Epping, Thomastown, Lalor, East Preston, and Reservoir, today our frontiers are extended to include Wollert, North Epping, new housing estates, and greenfield sites rapidly being filled up with new homes and new families.  We never forget Mill Park, that wonderful suburb we have served for a long time.

Because we educate the young girls and boys of the North, we also exist for the Catholic Church’s ministry of education for the Northern region of the Archdiocese.  Thus, parishes which are comprised of the suburbs listed before, and their Catholic Primary Schools, are the chief source of Year 7 Monicans who join us annually.  Whether that be St Peter’s School, Epping or Holy Name, East Preston or Mary Glowery Catholic School, Wollert, our catchment area is wide, diverse and we are devotedly faithful to the values we teach and implement at SMC. 

Of course, our College is in the fortunate position of welcoming in families of other faith traditions once we have allocated spaces for our Catholic and Orthodox students and non-Catholics in regional Catholic Primary Schools.  Waiting lists are common for our College, despite enrolling into Year 7 level sixteen regular streams of children plus our accelerated learning program, HORIZONS. 

The northern suburbs’ profile has changed over the decades since I commenced as Principal here in Epping in 1991.  From a majority of classic and honored working class suburbs, demographics are changed with new nationalities of Australians having taken up residence in the North, and our area has become and will continue to be a hub of urban growth, comprising industry, health, hospitability, logistics, transport, retail and medical facilities. 

St Monica’s Epping – an educational beacon located in Davisson Street (adjacent to the railway station); Dalton Road (across the road from the NMIT), Whitelaw Street Reservoir (amidst housing) and Falls Road, Strath Creek (mist in the mountains!). What a treasure trove of locations preparing the current children of the North for a magnificent future just has been offered and grasped by thousands of alumni Monicans since 1964.

I have always gone by the belief that the children of Melbourne’s northern and western suburbs have the right to assume their equal place alongside people from more affluent ‘burbs.  We have the brains, the manners, the desires, the dreams, the aspirations and the civic rights to contribute to Australian society through leadership, academic accomplishments, technical skills, trades of all types, and a beautiful sense of spirituality embedded within us through the College motto ‘Pray and Persevere’. Long may this continue, grow and flourish.

Mr B Hanley OAM

College Principal