OUR STORY

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Mount Carmel College celebrates its rich heritage in the work of Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop, co-founder of the Sisters of St Joseph in Australia in 1866, as well as the legacy of the work of the Sisters of St Joseph in our local area who worked hard to educate boys and girls marginalised from education and in response to the social inequity of the 19th Century.

Mount Carmel College continues to honour and nurture the Josephite charism by expressing this richness in the modern context.

  • 1868 – Sisters of St Joseph, co-founded by Julian Tension Woods and Mary MacKillop, opened co-educational schools in the Port Adelaide and Alberton areas.
  • 1927 – Marist Brothers open a boys’ school at the current Newcastle Street site.
  • 1940 - Mount Carmel Girls Secondary School was established at Alberton, centralising the three girls’ secondary schools from the Port Adelaide, Alberton and Woodville areas.
  • 1965 – An influx of migrants into the area in the 1950s resulted in only girls from the Port Adelaide/Pennington Parish being enrolled in the secondary classes.
  • 1966 – Marist Brothers boys’ school is closed.
  • 1967 – Mount Carmel College was established when the Sisters relocated the Secondary Girls from Mount Carmel Girl’s School in Pennington to our current Newcastle Street site.
  • 1971 - The first Year 12 class was introduced.
  • 1974 – It was decided the Year 12 students would travel to St Paul’s College, Gilles Plains.
  • 1983 – The College became co-educational.
  • 1984 – The College introduced its full Year 12 curriculum.
  • 1993 – All buildings, including the Mary MacKillop Special Education Unit, are completed.
  • 2011 – Work to construct our new Language Centre as part of the Commonwealth Government's Building the Education Revolution scheme is completed and officially opened in April as the Sr Josephine Dubiel RSJ Language Centre. The centre was aptly named after former Principal and the last Josephite Sister to lead the College from 1996 - 2005, Sr Josephine Dubiel RSJ.
  • 2013 - The three stages of the Josephite Courtyard building project are completed. This included the movement of four transportables to create the Josephite Courtyard; the reproduction of the Federation Garden; and the demolition of the 1926 Marist building where artificial turf has been laid in its place as a 'soft space' for students.
  • 2014 - Carmelite Courtyard and Rosewater Trade Training Centre (RTTC) were established.