About Us
Principal's Welcome
I would like to extend a warm welcome to new families and parents who are enquiring about enrolling their children at Saint Mary MacKillop College Albury. There are many roads that lead to Albury, but for parents raising their children in the Catholic faith, it is the road to the narrow gate that looms largest in their minds. How do parents set their children on the Catholic path when the broader society seems so ruthlessly opposed?
Catholic convert and writer, Scott Hahn, is wellknown for the books he has written on apologetics and Scripture. But in recent years, he has turned his attention to the decline of Western Civilisation. Parents, worried about their children’s prospects in a world that often repudiates truth, commonly frame the civilisational question in terms of the kind of society we are leaving to the next generation. Hahn, in contrast, turns the question on its head. In “The First Society: The Sacrament of Matrimony and the Restoration of the Social Order”, he writes:
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'We can’t control the national or civilisational culture our children will inherit, but we can do everything in our power to ensure our children will inherit the true faith. We can’t control the nature of the society our children will have to contend with, but we can influence the nature of the Catholic children our society will have to contend with.
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While some will ask, what kind of a society are we leaving for our children and grandchildren, parents may more profitably ask, what kind of children are we leaving for society? The first question is important, since, as disciples of Jesus, we must continue to be a leaven in the world.
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But parents’ first obligation is to the family and their children. Come what may in the worlds of politics, business and the media, home is the realm parents can take control of.
The Catholic home is a domestic church; a place where the faith is nurtured in love, discipleship is encouraged by prayer and example, and the grace of the sacraments is lived. While home is a winning advantage, passing on the faith to the next generation remains a daunting challenge. The Catholic faith is no longer transmitted through tribal allegiance (if ever it was), since religion is not a mere worldly phenomenon, but the practice of a virtue that recognises the Lordship of Jesus over all things.
Saint Mary MacKillop College Albury exists to support parents who share this vision for Catholic home life and the primacy of raising kids Catholic. Offering a safe harbour from worldly ideology and stolen innocence, SMMC is staffed by devout Catholic teachers who reinforce by word and example the values and practices parents are applying in the home.
A sanctuary and safe haven, Saint Mary MacKillop College is a consolidation of family and faith that is closely followed by a re-emergence, as graduates ascend the ranks of tertiary institutions, civil and religious society, and the sacramental vocations.
I welcome your enquiry and promise to keep you in my prayers as you discern the road ahead.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Ian Smith
Mr Ian Smith, Principal
The College Philosophy
Saint Mary MacKillop College Albury has as its foundation Christ and His Revelation. The College’s entire motivation and final goal are to be found in the principles of the Gospel. The College will most effectively achieve this goal when all members of the school community share this Christian vision.
Saint Mary MacKillop College is a place of Catholic formation where:
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Prayer, rigorous academic labour and cultural endeavour are nurtured.
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Our children must feel loved as individual persons.
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Students are called to be living witnesses and apostles, and are given opportunities for sharing their faith with others in the wider community and of serving the needy.
Our students are guided in the training of their freedom to seek what is true, beautiful and good. We desire that our students embrace their ability to not only know what is good but to decide to be good, to not just learn about facts and figures, but espouse knowledge for its own sake, to inquire into the nature of things and to awaken in the hearts of young people a sense of awe and wonder.
Our Values
Truth
“... I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” John 18:37
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Truth is the mind in accord with reality. Man has been made for, and to aspire to, the truth but due to our fallen nature we can lose sight of this. Jesus tells us that the truth will set us free. We desire to lead young people to not just know truth, but to love truth.
Beauty
“Beauty involves apprehending unity, harmony, proportion, wholeness, and radiance.”
Thomas Aquinas
Often associated with clarity or radiance, beauty is also associated with purity and simplicity.
Beauty pleases the eye and the ear but also the intellect, as it unites both body and soul in the appreciation of it. Beauty is a sign of God in the world. Who has never been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the beauty of God’s creation?
Goodness
O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.
Psalm 34:8
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Goodness is understood as the perfection of being, which we live with varying degrees of fulfilment. Goodness also extends to things, both created and less tangible. Jesus Christ, being both perfect God and perfect man has given us His teachings to assist us to discern and understand goodness.
Faith
Culture
Academics
Religious Education is a vital and integral component of school life at St Mary MacKillop College Albury.
The program is based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church and takes into account the seasons and feasts in the Church’s liturgical year, enabling students to deepen their knowledge and understanding of:
The Creed, The Sacraments, The
Commandments and Prayer.
The school day for all students begins in communal prayer, complemented by the reading of the Saint of the Day and the Virtue of the Month which is studied across the college.
A fundamental tradition is our school Mass on Fridays, which alternates between primary and secondary schools.
A whole school Mass is held on the first Friday of each month, and on feast days significant to the college community.
This celebration of liturgical feasts is integral to life at St Mary MacKillop College, and includes our annual rosary procession on the Feast of St Mary, Help of Christians, and a joyous celebration of our patroness, St Mary of the Cross, on her feast day.
The Virtues Program is embedded across all primary classrooms, and is run as a monthly program for students in Years 7 to 10. We hold weekly adoration, and Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (in our dedicated atrium) for primary students, along with regular religious instruction with our visiting clergy, across both primary and secondary classes.
Life and learning at the College is enriched by a range of extracurricular, social and community priorities.
These include frequent assemblies, which foster and celebrate student achievement, college milestones and a culture of piety and academic excellence.
Artistic and musical accomplishments are enjoyed at a range of events, such as concerts, performances and college productions.
A sense of community and fraternity is nurtured by frequent gatherings, including our welcome barbeque for all families at the commencement of the school year, and our annual Gala Dinner.
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The school fete is keenly anticipated each year, as is the Ski Trip for secondary students and the beloved Father & Son and Mother & Daughter camps.
The love for Truth and a desire for knowledge informs the attitudes and teaching practices of all teachers at
Saint Mary MacKillop College.
We preserve a synthesis of culture and faith so that students are taught the value of knowledge as such, and are helped to desire and find truth by means of instruction, study and experience.
Students will be helped to realise that education is not aimed at gaining
power or material prosperity and success, but as an aid to a fuller understanding of God, mankind and the world.
“The mind of the prudent
acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.”
PROVERBS 18:15