Explore
Learning & Wellbeing
Co-Curricular
At Catherine McAuley College Bendigo, students can explore their passions, with a wide range of different co-curricular opportunities available to enable personal growth and skill development, complementary to academic life.
Co-Curricular Opportunities
Music, debating, sports, performing arts, visual arts, academic competitions, justice camps, and the Frayne Speech Festival are examples of co-curricular opportunities on offer to appeal to the wide range of student interests.
Students are encouraged to have fun, extend their knowledge and discover something new.
College participants frequently enjoy success in state and national competitions.
Camps & Retreats
During their six-year journey at Catherine McAuley College Bendigo, students will attend a variety of camps and retreats. In addition to the whole year level activities, there are many opportunities to attend camps in areas ranging from social justice to environmental science, arts and outdoor education.
COOLOCK
The Year 7 Experience centres on helping students get to know and connect with peers and teachers at their year level. Students engage in a fun range of activities, making it the perfect time to form friendships and feel more at home in their new environment.
Year 8 students eagerly anticipate the Anglesea Camp, which offers a wide array of activities - with surfing always a favourite!
Year 9 students enjoy a three-night, four-day camp, choosing between two exciting options, for example a Falls Creek hike or a Yarrawonga camping-style adventure. Each provides unique challenges and memorable experiences.
ST MARY’S
In Year 10, students head to Melbourne for a two-night Urban Camp, where they learn to navigate the city while exploring cultural and vocational activities.
Year 11 Camp emphasises building resilience, embracing challenges, and strengthening peer connections.
For Year 12, the year begins with a three-day faith-based retreat that provides students with the opportunity to reflect, grow, and consider how they can create lasting positive change within themselves, their community, and the wider world. This retreat also reinforces bonds with classmates and teachers and prepare for the year ahead.
Sport
Sport enables students to develop both physical and emotional skills, encouraging participation, team building, confidence and success. At Catherine McAuley College Bendigo, students have opportunities to take part in sport at a variety of levels.
Our College offers a selection of individual and team sports, represented at local, state and national levels. The College is one of the most successful regional schools in Victoria, with multiple individuals and teams qualifying for the State finals each year across a wide variety of sports.
Catherine McAuley College Bendigo is associated with School Sport Victoria. This association has three different levels of competition, which starts at the local level. If a team (or individual) wins at this level, they proceed to the regional level, followed by state level. Our College competes in the following sports: swimming, cricket, tennis, volleyball, lawn bowls, golf, cross country, athletics, football (soccer), netball, badminton, table tennis, football (AFL), hockey and basketball.
“The College is an outstanding regional school for state titles and finalists.”
We also compete in a variety of school sporting competitions that fall outside of the School Sport Victoria banner, for example cycling, trapshooting and the Victorian Schools Netball Championships.
House competitions in swimming, athletics and at break times during the school day provide great competition and friendly rivalry.
The new Mercy Junortoun Sporting Precinct provides school and community joint-use sporting facilities at the Coolock Campus. The partnership with Liverpool FC International Academy has opened up new opportunities to deliver programs within our Physical Education curriculum and provide skill development opportunities to the community beyond school hours.
Liverpool FC
The partnership with Liverpool FC International Academy has opened up new opportunities to deliver programs within our Physical Education curriculum and provide skill development opportunities to the community beyond school hours.
The Arts
Express Yourself
The Sister Aloysius Martyn Arts Centre at Coolock and the Marian Theatre at St Mary’s provide contemporary specialist facilities for music, drama and the visual arts, fostering creativity and increased participation in the arts.
Our students have regularly been included in the Season of Excellence Top Class, Top Designs and Top Arts performances and exhibitions.
Music
At Catherine McAuley College Bendigo, we recognise that learning to play a musical instrument is a valuable activity in any student's development. Aside from the pleasure of playing, extensive research shows it is beneficial in the areas of reasoning ability, problem-solving skills, mathematics and language, memory capacity, self-confidence and self-discipline, and social and teamwork skills.
The Sister Aloysius Martyn Arts Centre at Coolock provides contemporary specialist facilities for music, fostering creativity and increased participation in the arts.
The College provides a high-quality instrumental music program, accessible to all families. Every Year 7 student begins their studies in music with an intensive practical program, including learning an instrument and participating in class ensembles.
Learning an instrument beyond Year 7 is a co-curricular activity, providing small-group tuition and large ensemble experiences. Instruments include saxophone, percussion, trumpet, flute, euphonium, guitar, trombone, clarinet, piano and voice. Students have a range of opportunities to showcase and develop their musical talents through instrumental ensembles, Stage and Concert Bands, choirs and the Rock Band.
Student musicians, rock bands, instrumental ensembles and choirs perform in concerts, Masses, celebrations and for the broader community. Our students are also invited to perform in events such as the annual Winter Concert and Musician of the Year, both of which are held in our 300-seat theatre at our St Mary’s campus.
Theatre
Students perform in year level drama nights and a highlight of the performance calendar is the fully-staged College production performed in the stunning Ulumbarra Theatre, alternating with an intensive play in an intimate setting in the College’s Marian Theatre.
At St Mary’s students perform in the 300-seat Marian Theatre, while at Coolock the black box theatre space in the Sister Aloysius Martyn Arts Centre provides new possibilities for stagecraft and performance. Students have large spaces for creating work and the theatre lighting and technical equipment allows them to learn production skills.
The state-of-the-art sound system allows the College to teach sound engineering and mixing to students. The fully-sprung floor is ideal for dance.
Recently, students have performed Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Marian Theatre and the large production The Addams Family in Ulumbarra.
There are many opportunities to connect with the production, such as performing, backstage, lighting, costumes, promotion and playing music. The staging of our production is a collaborative team effort, bringing many students and staff together over the course of a semester.
Visual Arts
Exhibitions and awards evenings display student work including art, ceramics, photography, media, graphics, textiles and fashion.
Students are provided with rich opportunities such as gallery visits to the dynamic Bendigo Arts Precinct and a diverse range of metropolitan arts spaces, from smaller contemporary galleries to the National Gallery of Victoria.
Authentic arts partnerships are fostered with arts organisations and individuals to connect students’ arts education beyond the classroom.
Debating and Public Speaking
Debating teams and public speaking encourage students to stand up and speak out about issues most important to them.
Being involved in such co-curricular activities teaches students how to research topics, construct speeches, and hone presentation techniques, providing valuable skills that can assist them later in life. Students also learn how to make a difference through the power of speech.
The annual Frayne Speech Festival against other Mercy Colleges, provides a friendly but competitive highlight for our speakers and debaters, allowing them to interact with other like-minded students from across Australia.
