Federation of Catholic Regional Colleges

The Federation of Catholic Regional Colleges (CRC) is a collaboration of five Catholic coeducational secondary colleges, located in the North Western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Each College within the Federation is partially autonomous with its own administrative structures. As a complex, the federation is governed by the Catholic Regional Colleges Board and its students are identified in the community by a single uniform and College crest. The name of each college is a combination of its campus location prefixed with 'Catholic Regional College'.

The first of the colleges to open was the St Albans campus in 1978, followed closely by the opening of a second campus in Melton West two years later. In 1982, a senior college in Sydenham was opened to cater for the senior secondary education of students from the Melton and St Albans campuses. In the same year an additional Years 7-10 college opened in North Keilor. As of 2007, the latest addition to the CRC Federation is a college in Caroline Springs.

The Federation consists of four junior feeder campuses and a single senior campus:

Concern about the lack of Catholic Education in the west of Melbourne can be traced back to 1962. Fr Martin, then Assistant Director of Catholic Education, celebrated Mass for Catholic students attending the local State High and Technical Colleges, where he encouraged them to practice their faith to the full. ‘In the near future’ he assured them, a Catholic School would be available.

In 1963, Archbishop Simonds, conscious of the rapid growth in the outer suburbs announced that a new model of provision was necessary if the growing population were to have access to Catholic Education. Religious Orders, who until then had been responsible for Secondary Education, could now not meet the increasing demand for schools. Consequently, groups of parishes would be called upon to build regional colleges for their own young parishioners.

In the west of Melbourne, the parishes of St Albans, Sunshine and West Sunshine had access to either St John’s College or Marian College. At Sunbury, Salesian College catered for boys from the local district. While the education offered at these colleges was considered excellent, numbers able to attend these colleges were limited and so a large group of students were missing out on Catholic Secondary Education.

In 1976 a Secondary Education Development Plan was launched by the Catholic Education Office, Melbourne. It did not, however, make provision for a secondary school within the St Albans area. This was raised by Frs O’Reilly and Guelen at a meeting with the CEO later that year with the observation that there were already over 1000 students in parish primary schools in the area, and more than 100 ready to enter secondary school. Within a year, the parishes of St Albans, Melton, Bacchus Marsh, Sunbury and Airport West met with Bishop J. O’Çonnell to consider how they might meet the educational needs of their young people. In March, a planning committee was established to pursue Catholic Secondary Education for the area.

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