OUR SCHOOL HOUSES & SCHOOL PATRON
Our School Houses
Students belong to (number of school houses) house teams that promote connections to our Catholic story and a deeper sense of belonging. Houses are used for sporting events, assemblies and gatherings.
Flinders House is named after Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) a British navigator and cartographer who circumnavigated and mapped the continent and gave us the name Australia. The colour of Flinders House is green.
Hastings House is named after the Hastings River. The colour of Hastings House is purple.
Innes House is named after Archibald Clunes Innes (1800-1857), who was a Scottish soldier, pastoralist and commandant of the Port Macquarie penal settlement. He purchase a property north of Sydney and transformed the wilderness into the fabled Lake Innes with convict labour. The colour of Innes House is blue.
Macquarie House is named after Lachlan Macquarie (1762-1824) the fifth governor of NSW. He expanded opportunities for Emancipists (freed convicts), established a balance of power with the Exclusionists (large landowners and sheep farmers) and had a leading role in the social, economic, and architectural development of the colony. The colour of Macquarie House is red.
Oxley House is named after John Oxley an explorer and surveyor of Australia in the early period of British colonisation. Oxley named the Hastings River and upon reaching its mouth he discovered that it flowed into the sea at a spot which Oxley named Port Macquarie. The colour of Oxley House is yellow.
Wilson House is named after the Wilson River. The river was named after Lieutenant W.E.B Wilson, an engineer and Superintendent of the Port Macquarie Convict Settlement. The colour of Wilson House is orange.
Our School Patron
St Joseph’s the Worker
Pope Pius XII established the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker in 1955. The pope gave Christian workers the example of Saint Joseph to show forth the dignity of labour, no matter how menial. He chose 1 May, a day the Communists used to celebrate their view of labour. We can offer our work to God for His honour and glory and for the good of ourselves and others; in this way, work becomes a prayer. This prayer to St Joseph the Worker, a prayer for our work, was written by Pope Pius X.
O Glorious St Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labour, obtain for me the grace to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my natural inclinations, to work with gratitude and joy, in a spirit of penance for the remission of my sins, considering it an honour to employ and develop by means of labour the gifts received from God, to work with order, peace, moderation and patience, without ever shrinking from weariness and difficulties, to work above all with purity of intention and detachment from self, having death always before my eyes and the account that I must render of time lost, of talents wasted, of good omitted, of vain complacency in success, so fatal to the work of God. All for Jesus, all through Mary, all after thine example, O Patriarch St Joseph. Such shall be my motto in life and in death.
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