About Montgrove

Montgrove College is an independent school teaching the Catholic faith. It is co-educational from Kindergarten to Year 1 and all girls from Year 2 to Year 12. Boys join Wollemi College from Year 2 to Year 12.

Montgrove is a school where the role of the family in education effectively comes first. The school has the dual role of providing for the overall development of the student as well as assisting parents to become even more competent educators of their children.

Montgrove College offers a personalised system of education, seeking to integrate the pursuit of academic excellence, the acquisition of skills and the development of the student's character.

The personalised Mentoring System, pioneered in Australia by The Pared Foundation, ensures that our educational input is effectively tailored to the individual student and facilitates the partnership between home and school.

Montgrove College is a community of parents, staff and students who are committed to making a positive contribution to society through the development of character, academic learning and Christian living.

Montgrove aims to provide the foundation that equips students with the skills to become leaders in society through:

• Striving for excellence in all of one’s endeavours
• Living a deep faith and having a high level of moral integrity
• Having a genuine respect for the dignity of all
• Recognising one’s duty to positively contribute to the family and society
• Appreciating all that is good, true and beautiful.

Mass is celebrated at Montgrove College every day at 12:15 pm in the school chapel, by one of the School Chaplains who are also available daily for reconciliation. The spiritual formation of the school is entrusted to Opus Dei, a personal prelature of the Catholic Church.

Confession, doctrinal talks and women’s recollections are available at the School during School terms for parents and students.

The Montgrove College School Chaplains are Fr Anthony Khoudair and Fr Felix Navarro.

Image used with permission under Creative Commons Licence CC BY-SA 2.0

St Josemaria Escriva was born in Barbastro in Spain in 1902. As a teenager he had the conviction that God was asking something special of him and so he decided to study for the priesthood. He was ordained in 1926. During a retreat he was attending, on 2 October 1928, he received a vivid and wholly supernatural understanding from God in his soul that he should found Opus Dei.

Montgrove delivers support to assist parents in their role as the primary educators of their children by providing ongoing formation. This is done through:

Key Parent Functions

Key Parent Functions (KPF) are held in Terms 1 - 3 and provide an on-going program to assist parents in the education of their children. Attendance by both parents is essential. Each KPF is held on an evening as seminars or workshops conducted by experienced parents, educators and experts. Topics relate to educating a child at each developmental stage, current issues affecting the family, information sessions on policies and happenings at the college.

Parent involvement at Montgrove, means, first of all, involvement in the education of one’s own child through the mentoring system. The mentoring system helps to ensure that parents do not lose their key role in overseeing the education of their children. Parents are encouraged to talk frequently with the mentor of their child, keeping track of priorities in their child’s development as a student and as a whole person.

When parents work closely with the mentor, the College is better able to address the specific needs of the individual student. Parents are better able to direct their children’s upbringing even though they spend much of their time at school, perhaps even more than they might spend personally with their parents.

The specific commitments asked of parents on coming to Montgrove are:

• to work closely with their child’s mentor. This involves a meeting of both parents together with the mentor, usually at the College, at least every term;
• to provide follow-up at home of the goals set in this parent-mentor meeting;
• to attend the Key Parent Functions and other formal functions organised by the College in order to keep up to date with developments at the school, be informed of issues which the College sees as important in the formation of the students and to meet with their child’s teachers;