A Message from our Principal

Our College Open Day is the perfect opportunity to gain a sense of the values and spirit that shape daily life at St Patrick’s College. As educators, we aim to instil a love of learning and encourage our students to be confident learners. As a connected and inclusive community, we aim to develop our young men into good citizens who will make a positive contribution to their community for the good of all. 

As a committed and diverse teaching and learning faculty, we offer a liberating education that will foster the skills needed for the future. We encourage our young men to be communicators, critical thinkers, creative and collaborative.  We offer our students a sense of justice and solidarity and encourage them to look beyond themselves and consider how they can make a difference to those in his community and those on the margins of society. 

Our comprehensive Student Formation Program is tailored to guide our young men from the junior years through to their final year to be Men of Action who are prepared to embrace the world with all its opportunities and challenges. This includes The Rite Journey program which provides our Year 9 students with the opportunity to experience rites of passage and important life lessons to help them transition from boyhood to a young adult. Student leadership is a journey that all students are encouraged to undertake, from Years 5 to 12 and is one of the key touchstones of our Student Formation Program. The action of leading other students is not merely the responsibility of the seniors of the school: all students at the College have the potential and the ability to be leaders in some way. As a result, St Patrick’s College aims to ultimately produce student leaders who are young men with a demonstrated history of service and commitment to leading in a manner that reflects the Edmund Rice ethos. They are good role models in and out of the classroom and have been actively engaged in broader College life.  

The College also has a “one school” approach across Years 5 – 12, this provides for a seamless transition into high school.  Students beginning the St Patrick’s College journey in Year 5 are provided with a nurturing environment and learn the culture and expectations of the College very quickly. Year 5 and Year 6 students follow a similar timetable, share lunch hours, are involved in our mentoring program and participate in all facets of College life alongside our senior students. From their very first day at the College, they are partnered with a Year 12 Big Brother who will guide them through their first year at the College. For many young men the special bond of brotherhood fostered by this program, between a new student and a senior student, will continue well after he has left the College.  

Whether his interests lie in the arts, academics, sport, community service, science, music, or metalwork our comprehensive curriculum will help him find his passion. No achievement, big or small, goes unnoticed. We will offer him a solid pathway to his future.  Along the way he will build connections that he will carry with him throughout his life and will always be welcomed back into the community he called his home in his formative years.  It is the combination of place, people and opportunity that moulds our young men into Men of Faith, Learning, Humility and Action.  I look forward to welcoming you to our College on Tuesday, 30 May between 3:00pm and 6:00pm and invite you and your son to come and find your place at St Patrick’s College, Shorncliffe.  

 Chris Mayes College Principal

next open day: 30 May 2023

Our College Open Day will be held on Tuesday, 30 May from 3:00pm to 6:00pm. Take a personal tour led by our senior students and discover our beautiful bayside campus. Meet staff, students and parents who will show you why St Patrick’s is a College that will offer your son/s an educational experience that excels in curriculum, pastoral care and co-curricular sports and culture. 

Contact our Enrolments Office on 3631 9025 to organise a personal tour.