Greater Opportunities

Sacred Heart College (SHC) is well located within a short walking distance from St Joseph’s College (SJC) in Newtown, Geelong. The two highly regarded Catholic schools have celebrated a long-running collaboration, offering a broad range of VCE subjects, together with the many benefits of a co-educational environment.

For those new to the Greater Geelong region, St Joseph's College (often referred to locally as ‘Joeys’) is an independent Catholic secondary school. The Edmund Rice campus is located on Aphrasia Street in Newtown, approximately 500m from Sacred Heart College and provides an education for Years 7 to 12 students, with an independent campus for Year 9 students located in Herne Hill.

The proximity of both schools means many local families have children enrolled at both Colleges.

VCE Co-Education

To enable both Colleges to offer a broad range of VCE subjects, SHC and SJC have for many years offered co-instruction to senior students. Students of St Joseph’s completing a VCE subject that is offered at Sacred Heart College are able to walk down Aphrasia Street to attend their timetabled classes; likewise, SHC students completing a particular VCE study offered at SJC will walk up to St Joseph’s to attend their classes. Bell times are aligned to avoid any disruption and a small time allowance is provided to ensure students can walk safely between the two campuses.

Both Sacred Heart and St Joseph's Colleges are committed to providing students the greatest opportunities to study subjects they are passionate about. Media studies and theatre studies are consistently popular VCE choices; however, individual schools may find it challenging to offer these subjects based on the lower enrolment numbers. Combining the number of students who wish to participate in these subjects from the two schools enables each VCE cohort with an opportunity they may otherwise not have.

A further benefit is afforded to students who might otherwise miss out on subject choices due to timetable restrictions. For example, VCE biology has high enrolment rates and as we are able to offer classes at both schools, individual timetables can accommodate biology depending on what works best for each student’s schedule.

Co-Curricular Activities

St Joseph’s and Sacred Heart senior students also collaborate in a number of shared College co-curricular activities including:

• Call it Out Podcast – Call It Out is a podcast produced by students from Sacred Heart College and St Joseph's College and offers listeners an intimate invitation into what young people think. Episodes are an insightful journey into contemporary issues impacting them with discussion themes such as gender equality, unhealthy masculinity, everyday sexism, healthy relationships and consent etc

• IWD Respect Cup - Launched in 2021 and held each year to celebrate International Women’s Day and promote respectful relationships in schools, the Respect Cup invites the AFL teams from St Joseph’s College to play St Patrick’s College Ballarat, and the AFL teams from Sacred Heart College to contest Loreto College Ballarat.

• CLOGS Winter Ball - CLOGS stands for Catholic Leaders of Geelong Schools and is a group that includes the College Captains from the local Catholic schools - St Joseph’s, St Ignatius, Clonard and Sacred Heart College. The student leaders will usually meet several times in a year to organise fundraising events such as the Year 12 Winter Ball – which brings the four Geelong Catholic Colleges together in celebration of their final year.

• Tri-UMPH Music Festival - Organised and conducted by the students of the five Catholic colleges (Clonard College, Sacred Heart, St Joseph’s College, St Ignatius College and Iona College), Tri-UMPH is the biggest student-run festival in Australia and features various local artists and live bands with the aim of raising funds to support education in Timor-Leste.

• Combined Schools Musical Theatre Production - Every year the Combined Schools Production is hosted by one of the participating schools (Sacred Heart, Iona, St Joseph’s and Clonard Colleges) with students invited to audition for both cast and support roles in what is always an incredible musical theatre production.