A new era for St Paul’s College

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1 February 2019

At the end of 2018, teachers and students at St Paul’s College, Kew, said goodbye to the specialist school’s home of the past 61 years.

The college has moved to Balwyn to continue its mission in a modern and even more inclusive school. St Paul’s College students have access to new technology and resources to help them learn in a fun and interesting environment.

For teacher Hygenia Lobo, who has taught at the school for 20 years, there are mixed emotions about the move from Kew to Balwyn. ‘It will be sad. It’s been home, my family, my community, for 20 years. I know every brick on these walls. I know this place so well and everything is so familiar. It is special.’

In February 1957, the college’s Kew campus was established as an ambitious project to provide blind children with a Catholic education. Its first classroom was an old stable at the same location, which later became a unique school with 60 students, 30 teachers, allied health professionals and support staff.

The new Balwyn site includes an assistive technology centre, technology pods, a sensory room, a STEAM room (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics), a café and a kitchen garden for senior students to develop essential life skills to pave the way for future employment and independence. There is a lot of excitement about the future of the school and, of course, there are lots of great memories from the past.

James O’Brien has worked as a teacher’s assistant at St Paul’s College for the past 19 years and says his best memories of the school involve graduation day each year. ‘The thing that’s touching is graduation because you have seen a student in many cases since [Prep] right through to graduation’, he said. ‘You suddenly realise they’re a person of the world now. They’ve done their schooling and they are out in the big, bright new world.’