THE Brisbane Catholic Education Council has given the green light to proceed with the planning and development of a new secondary school at Burpengary, north of Brisbane.
The proposed school will be built on a site adjacent to St Eugene’s Primary School, Burpengary.
The Archdiocesan Education Planning Forum will assess the project before it is presented to Brisbane Archbishop John Bathersby for final approval.
More than 80 people attended a meeting at St Eugene de Mazenod Church on November 16 to share their hopes and dreams for the proposed school.
A school steering committee will use data gathered from the meeting and a general survey of potential families in feeder primary schools to produce a master plan for the site.
St Eugene’s parish priest, Oblate Father Lewy Keelty, said a secondary school had been a long held desire among the area’s Catholic community.
He said the two Catholic communities of St Eugene’s at Burpengary and Christ the King at Deception Bay looked forward to working with Brisbane Catholic Education as the proposed secondary school moved closer to reality.
Brisbane Catholic Education planning officer Bernard Holland said the proposed secondary school still had many approval stages to go through.
“But we are confident of opening the school in January 2008,” he said.
The school will be developed within the spirituality of the Oblate tradition and will focus on developing pastoral, spiritual and learning links with its wider community.
The curriculum will be integrated with the two feeder primary schools of St Eugene’s and Christ the King and will be built around the early, middle and senior phases of learning.
A priority is to ensure the school’s architecture takes advantage of the creek ecology in both the site design as well as in curriculum programs, and fosters the sustainable use of water, light and power.
The secondary school is expected to have an enrolment of about 600 students by 2016 and will adopt one school fee structure across all year levels.
