St Joseph's, Lochinvar

Welcome

In 2010 St. Joseph’s Lochinvar is 127 years old.  Age alone does not make a place so it is important that we have opportunity to provide the wider community with a sense of the vibrant and dynamic qualities of our school.  We also hope to show how we are accepting and responding to the challenges of providing a contemporary Catholic education to students from families in our area.

St Joseph's Campus of All Saints College provides schooling for students in Years 7 – 10 with an enrolment of 706 students in August 2010.  St Joseph's Campus is situated at Lochinvar in a peaceful rural setting, just 8 km from Maitland NSW, and provides secondary education for students from the parishes of Rutherford, Lochinvar, Branxton and Cessnock.  St. Joseph’s is located in the Chisholm Pastoral region of the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese and is fortunate to be situated across the road from the Lochinvar Parish Church.

As a Catholic school St Joseph’s is committed to the Church’s mission of providing a holistic education based on the Catholic view of the person as a creation of God. With its Catholic identity as its foundation the school promotes the values of the Gospels through all aspects of the life of the school.

There has been a Catholic school on the St Joseph’s site since before 1883, originally run by lay staff. The exact commencement date is not known. In 1883 the Sisters of St Joseph’s arrived and conducted the school under their auspices until 1992 when the school was amalgamated with two Catholic schools in Maitland, St Peter’s High School (established by the Marist Brothers) and St Mary’s High School (established by the Dominican Sisters) to form All Saints College as part of the Catholic schools of the diocese.  While the Sisters of St Joseph ran the school it was a notable girls’ boarding and day school serving the region and beyond.  

It is an explicit aim of the school to maintain an identity based in the spirituality and charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph.  The school is a foundation member of an Australia wide ‘Josephite Secondary Schools Association’ formed in 2006.  The purpose of this association will be to foster awareness of the Tenison Woods/ Mary MacKillop legacy and create a network of schools inspired by the life and work of our founders. 

The fact that our school is co-located with the Congregational Headquarters of the Sisters of St. Joseph provides special opportunity for the development and affirmation of our unique charism.  In this sense we are very confident that Tenison Woods and Mary MacKillop would both be approving of our school motto ‘Strength in Difficulties’ as it resonates clearly with the struggles they faced in establishing their order and bringing education to the people of Australia who most needed it.