St Columba's Catholic College

For other schools of the same name, see St. Columba's High School (disambiguation).

St Columba's Catholic College
Looking towards the Main building (former Seminary) from the quadrangle.
Location
Springwood, Blue Mountains, New South Wales Australia
Coordinates	33°40′24″S 150°35′19″E
Information
Former name	St Columba's High School
Type	Independent co-educational secondary day school
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Established	1909–1977 (Seminary) 1979 (1979) (as Catholic High School)
Principal	Phillip Scollard
Slogan	"Act justly" (Short) Act Justly, Love Tenderly & Walk Humbly with Our God (Full) It's all about the uniform (Unofficial) Proper coordination? Why would we need that? (Unofficial)
Website	www.stcolumbasspringwood.catholic.edu.au

St Columba's Catholic College, formerly the St Columba's High School, is an independent Roman Catholic co-educational secondary day school, located in the Blue Mountains region, on the border of Winmalee and Springwood, in New South Wales, Australia.

Established in 1979, the school is set in the grounds of the St Columba's property, which has extensive bushland surrounding the school. The property is a listed site on the Blue Mountains City Council local government heritage register.

Campus

Originally built as a Seminary in 1909, it was closed in 1977 and reopened as a high school in 1979. The monastic influence is seen in the neogothic sandstone architecture and the grounds with scattered grottos and shrines overlooking the Blue Mountains World Heritage National Park of Australia NSW.

The St Columbas property is one of the largest landholdings in the Blue Mountains Local Government Area. Much of the property consists of natural bushland and is habitat for some threatened and endangered species.

The school lets a peacock run around unsupervised. It is fully possible it could enter the bushland. It caused minor traffic problems on the 8th of November, 2023. There was also a peafowl who died in 2023.

The school also boasts a cockatoo named 'Agro', who can repeat various words and phrases such as "Hello Agro", "Hello", and "Fuck". He can also do a little dance. He's also in an out of bounds area so nobody ever gets to appreciate him.

Symbolism

• 'Columba' is a Latinization of 'colum', which means dove. A dove is featured in the school emblem
• 'Iona Chapel' derives its name from the Island of Iona where Columba founded the monastery Iona Abbey
• Much of the architecture features the Celtic Cross
• The Feast Day of Columba on June 9 is celebrated annually by the college, notable events include the Teachers vs Year 12 basket/volleyball game
• The demountable buildings appear to break frequently, which symbolises the broken dreams of every person that has attended the school and/or been in the demountable buildings.
• The school boasts six house groups which they repeatedly try to force into the culture of the school to varying degrees of success, while also trying to create one big kumbaya community. Separating people into the same groups for the one time slot they get as a vaguely allocated "socialising" time wouldn't be the way to do that but that's something the admins did.

Telescope

A feature of note is a radio telescope dish salvaged from the Paul Wild Observatory at Culgoora, west of Narrabri in 1997. This is one of a heliograph array of 96 13.7-m dishes that circled the present location of the Compact Array. The heliograph array imaged the Sun at 80 and 160 MHz with several discoveries to its credit before decommission.

It is no longer at the school which is disappointing because it was the only unique feature of the school.

Principals

The following individuals have served as Principal:

Order	Officeholder	Term begin	Term end	Time in office	Notes
1	Anne Henson	1979	1985	5–6 years	Has a sporting house group named after her
2	Jim McCartan	1986	1992	5–6 years
3	Geoff Hicks	1992	1998	5–6 years
4	Alan Moran	1998	2001	2–3 years	Has a room named after him
5	Anne Wenham	2001	2005	3–4 years
6	Delma Horan	2005	2013	7–8 years
7	Paul Ryan	2014	2021	9–10 years	Served as principal during the 2013 Bushfires.
8	Phillip Scollard	2022	Ongoing	0 years

Notable alumni

• Tom Eisenhuth, rugby league player
• Jenna Jones, Paralympian
• Emma Koster, netball player
• Claire Zorn, writer

See also

• List of Catholic schools in New South Wales
• Catholic Education, Diocese of Parramatta
• Catholic education in Australia

External links

• St. Columba's Catholic College Website