Neha Patil (Editor)

Loreto Normanhurst

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Denomination
  
Roman Catholic

Principal
  
Barbara Watkins

Phone
  
+61 2 9487 3488

Gender
  
Single-sex education

Established
  
1897

Chaplain
  
Kerry McCullough

Founded
  
1897

Loreto Normanhurst

Type
  
Private, Day and Boarding

Motto
  
Cruci Dum Spiro Fido(While I Live, I Trust in the Cross)

Address
  
91-93 Pennant Hills Rd, Normanhurst NSW 2076, Australia

Similar
  
Barker College Junior Sc, Abbotslei School for Girls, Mount St Benedict College, Pymble Ladies' College, Ravensw School for Girls

Profiles

Loreto normanhurst music festival 2016 winner aston house singing unwritten conducted by ysabel


Loreto Normanhurst is a private, Roman Catholic, day and boarding school for girls, located in Normanhurst, a suburb on the upper North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Contents

Established in 1897, Loreto has a current enrolment of approximately 1000 students from Year 5 to Year 12, including approx. 220 boarders, and is the largest girls' boarding school in New South Wales. In 2006, the school was named among the top ten innovative schools in Australia. Commencing in 2015, the school reopened their primary school for girls in years 5 and 6.

Loreto is affiliated with the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA), the Association of Independent Schools of New South Wales (AISNSW), the Australian Boarding Schools' Association (ABSA), the Alliance of Girls' Schools Australasia (AGSA), and is a member of the Association of Heads of Independent Girls' Schools (AHIGS).

The school is one of many around the world established by the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or Loreto Sisters, founded some 400 years ago by Mary Ward, and its Sydney sister school is Loreto Kirribilli. There are five other Loreto schools across Australia, in Melbourne, Ballarat, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth.

Loreto normanhurst hotr 2016


History

Mother Gonzaga Barry led the Loreto nuns to Sydney from Ballarat, Victoria in 1892, establishing a school in rented premises at Randwick. Within five years, the school had grown significantly, and a separate school for the boarders was deemed necessary. Mother Gonzaga's prayers for an appropriate site were answered during a visit to Sydney in 1896, as Mother Oliver explained:

Mr Frank Coffee of Wahroonga sent her an urgent message to come and see a property that was for sale a short distance from his home. It had been raining, but as the nuns arrived at the site, the sun burst through the clouds and formed a beautiful rainbow over the estate.

This land was purchased, and the foundation stone for the new convent was laid on 28 February 1897 by Cardinal Moran. The school opened late in 1897 as "Loreto Convent, Hornsby" with 15 boarders, many of them girls who had come from Randwick.

Although primarily a boarding school at this time, Loreto did accept a small number of day students from the local Hornsby area, including some young boys. Enrolments grew over the following decades, however the wars and depression proved difficult times. Following World War II, the surrounding shire developed and day girl numbers began to equal that of boarders, gradually overtaking them to the present situation where there are many more day girls than boarders.

House system

As with most Australian schools, Loreto Normanhurst utilises a house system. The school currently has eight houses, which play an important role in the pastoral programme at the school. They are:

The houses are an important part of the schools community. To keep the members of the houses together, they make sure the lockers are surrounded by the house mates.

Notable alumni

  • Jenny Brockie – Broadcaster
  • Catherine Livingstone – Chair of Telstra[1], former CEO of Cochlear
  • Jessica McNamee – Actor Home and Away, Packed to the Rafters, Dancing with the Stars
  • Clare Martin – CEO of ACOSS, former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory
  • Zoe Naylor – Actor, McLeod's Daughters
  • Emma Simkin – SBS journalist and reporter
  • Kimberley Starr – Novelist
  • Monica Trapaga – Singer and TV presenter
  • Victoria Pendergast– Australian Winter Paralympic skier
  • References

    Loreto Normanhurst Wikipedia