Catholic College Bendigo - History

History

There are two central founders of Catholic College Bendigo. The Sisters of Mercy arrived in Bendigo in 1876, and set up a school on Wright Street (Now the Coolock site). The Marist Brothers arrived in Bendigo in 1893. The founders of these orders, Marcellin Champagnat and Catherine McAuley are considered the founders of Catholic College Bendigo.

In 1955, the site at La Valla was opened for boarding boys as 'St Vincent's College'. Due to declining boarders, the school opened to day pupils in 1972.

In 1983, the two schools run by the Mercy Sisters and the Marist brothers combined, to make a co-educational school. It was also renamed Catholic College Bendigo. By 1988, the school had two sites - La Valla and Coolock, which are the current two sites.

An ongoing process of refurbishment has been running since the late 1990s—in 1998, the Junortoun quadrangle was refurbished. In 2004, Wright Street, which runs through Coolock was bought by the school and closed, which led to a large refurbishment of the area to face the road. In 2005, the Coolock Arts building was refurbished. In 2006, work on a new Technology Building at La Valla began. It was completed in 2007.

In 2008, The Marian Centre at Coolock was opened. It features a new music block and theatre, as well as a large gym with 2 basketball courts. This gym is the venue for whole school assemblies—a 2008 initiative to bring the two sites closer together.

There was a major transition to a vertical pastoral care system in 2009. Prior to 2009, Catholic College Bendigo had four houses - Marcellin (Blue), Backhaus (Yellow), McAuley (Green) and Crane (Red). The new system comprises six houses, with homegroups now aligned into houses. The new houses of the College are Vincent (Gold), Backhaus (Purple), McAuley (Blue), MacKillop (Green), Jaara (Orange) and Champagnat (Burgundy).

Coolock also changed their homeroom model to a vertical housegroup system. At Coolock, each house now has six Year 10/11/12 housegroups. At La Valla, each house has two Year 7 housegroups, two Year 8 housegroups and two Year 9 housegroups. The total number of housegroups across the College is 64. There are also two further housegroups, bringing the total to 66.

CCB is a member of the Catholic All Schools Sports Association (CAS).

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