| Oakhill College | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Castle Hill, New South Wales, Australia | |
| Information | |
| Type | Independent, Secondary, Co-educational, Day school |
| Denomination | Roman Catholic, De La Salle Brothers |
| Established | 1936[2] |
| Employees | ~121 (Full-time)[3] |
| Key people | Br Ken Ormerod FSC (Principal) Br John Pill FSC (Chairman) |
| Enrolment | ~1,600 (7–12)[3] |
| Colour(s) | Maroon and Gold |
| Website | www.oakhill.nsw.edu.au |
Oakhill College is a Catholic, co-educational, secondary, day school, located in Castle Hill, New South Wales, a suburb in the Hills District of the Greater Western region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Founded in 1936, the College is run by the De La Salle Brothers[2] in the tradition of St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, and currently caters for approximately 1,600 students from Years 7 to 12.[3]
Oakhill College is a member of the Independent Schools Association (ISA),[4] and is a school of the Diocese of Parramatta.[5]
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The De La Salle Brothers purchased the Oakhill property in 1932. The school commenced in August 1936 with four students, increasing to 30 in 1937 when there were 10 day and 20 boarding students. The College served the then rural area of "The Hills",[6] and grew slowly until in 1953, its enrolment reached 100.
In 1974 the decision was taken to phase out the boarding school and, in 1976 Oakhill College became a co-educational senior school.[6] The phasing out of primary classes commenced in 1980, and by 1983, Oakhill College was enrolling only secondary students. In the year 2006, the 100th year of the Brothers in Australia was celebrated with a mass at St Mary's Cathedral.
The property was initially used as a training college for brothers; the school came later. The training college for brothers evolved into a training college for Catholic lay teachers, which was then merged into the Australian Catholic University in the 1980s, which then became the Castle Hill campus of the ACU. Finally, in the 1990s, the ACU decided to consolidate their campuses in Sydney, and abandoned their Castle Hill facility, which then reverted to the De La Salle brothers. Since then, the original training college has been extensively renovated, named the De La Salle Building and forms part of the school.
The Centenary Sports Centre is the newest addition to the college campus. It was built during the course of 2006, and was opened in late November 2006. It has a 25 metre pool, PD/H/PE classrooms, and a gym. The main part of the centre is a double basketball court, which is also used for school assemblies.
The gym was later moved to a vacant location on the third level of the centre, thus turning the old gym into an extra PDHPE classroom.
The College conducts a major musical every two years, and a junior musical every alternate year. Additionally, Year 10 and 12 respectively stage plays in the later part of the school year, with the cast and crew composed entirely of drama students, whose performance is graded and forms part of their assessment mark. Past productions have included:
Pastoral care at Oakhill involves classroom based programs in years 7 and 8 and a House system from Years 9–12. The Houses include:
On 9 February 2008, The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that a Greens analysis of government figures showed that, over four years, Oakhill received $13.2 million more in federal government funding than it is entitled to under the Socioeconomic status (SES) formula.[7]
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