| Catholic Cathedral College | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| 62 Ferry Rd, Christchurch, New Zealand |
|
| Information | |
| Type | Integrated secondary (year 7-13) co-ed |
| Motto | "To Live by Faith" |
| Established | 1987 |
| Ministry of Education Institution no. | 531 |
| School roll | 332 (2011) |
| Socio-economic decile | 3 |
| Website | cathcollege.school.nz |
Catholic Cathedral College, Christchurch is an integrated Catholic co-educational secondary school in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was founded in 1987 but its origins go back to more than a 100 years earlier. The college is an amalgamation of two schools: Sacred Heart College for girls, and Xavier College for boys.
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Sacred Heart was opened by the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions in 1881, although the Sisters had schools on the site from 1868. Xavier College was founded in 1946 and was operated by the Marist Brothers who had schools on the site from 1888. The college is located in central Christchurch, adjacent to the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on the former sites of its predecessor colleges, which were adjoining. The convent building is today occupied by the Christchurch Music Centre.
The college does not have an enrolment scheme and can therefore accept pupils from all parts of Christchurch. The maximum roll is set at 880 students by agreement between the school's proprietor, the Catholic Bishop of Christchurch and the Government of New Zealand under the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act 1975. A standard provision of that Act is that 5% of students may be "non-preference" (i.e. non-Catholic). The College is also the only one of the five Catholic secondary schools situated in Christchurch, to be co-educational.
Because of the 2010 Canterbury earthquake (7.1 magnitude) which devastated much of the city, the college accommodated the entire primary school community of St Paul's School, Dallington for several months. But the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake (6.3 magnitude) caused far worse devastation to the city than the September 2010 earthquake. Parts of the college are under the unstable 400-ton dome of the Catholic Cathedral. Because the dome may collapse at any time, the college is now operating in the afternoons at St Thomas of Canterbury College. The dome is to be removed. The school will move back to its own site on 1 August 2011, but three buildings will still be off limits.[1]