Marian College will move to Catholic Cathedral College at the start of next year. The College’s Shirley site is to be ‘mothballed’ for up to four years. Marian College principal Anna Heffernan said the school was not being amalgamated with Catholic Cathedral College. Each would remain a separate school community, with its own culture and identity. Marian will use a combination of permanent and relocatable classrooms.
The February 22 and June 13 earthquakes had caused widespread liquefaction at Marian College’s Shirley site and the 430 pupils and 55 staff have been sharing the St Bede’s College site since May. But according to the chairman of the Board of Trustess, Gerard Duignan, the move was unavoidable because the Education Ministry had said schools could not have split-shift days next year.
Duignan said most of the school’s buildings could be repaired, but geotechnical engineers had advised that repairs be deferred for at least a year because of the risk of further quakes. He hoped the school would eventually return to the site it had occupied since 1982.
Moving to the Catholic Cathedral site:
- Allows the Marian College students to return to a “normal” (8.30am – 3.00pm) school day.
- Provides the possibility for senior classes at Marian College and Catholic Cathedral College to be timetabled together …as was previously the case with Marian College and Shirley Boys’ High School.
- Affords the Marian College students the possibility to access Catholic Cathedral College’s specialist science, art and technology facilities.
Source