St Cecilia’s has a history marked by the tradition of a rigorous academic curriculum, within a Catholic setting and permeated in a culture where love, care, kindness and community focus prevail. We are proud and privileged to be part of St Cecilia’s in the 3rd millennium and pleased to pass on the history, traditions and culture of our fine Catholic school.
The school and parish patroness is St Cecilia. St Cecilia spent her short life as a dedicated follower of Jesus and displayed qualities of leadership, courage, integrity and gentleness. At St Cecilia’s school today, these characteristics are encouraged through the way we speak to one another and through our actions. St Cecilia is also remembered as the patroness of Music.
St Cecilia’s school is part of the Parish of the Catholic Community of North Harbour and is ministered by the original order of St Augustine. St Cecilia’s Parish was founded in 1929 with Father Edmund Bond as the first priest and is now a twinned parish with St Kieran’s Manly Vale.
On Sunday, November 14, 1929, the St Cecilia’s School/Church building was opened by Archbishop Sheehan. This building is now the school hall. The school was opened in 1930 by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan. They established a convent in Seaview Street and opened the school. From this time, the last duty on a Friday each week was to convert the school back to a church for Sunday Mass.
St Cecilia’s Parish is twinned with St Kieran’s Parish, Manly Vale, as the Catholic Community of North Harbour. Both parishes are ministered by the Augustinian Order. To celebrate 90 years of educating children, we launched our new school logo which retains symbolism from the Good Samaritan order as well as the Augustinian Priests, our pastoral leaders. We retain the open book of scripture, symbolising learning and a search for knowledge. The olive branch symbolising peace. We added the flaming heart symbolising our love of God and our fellow brothers and sisters. These symbols are a rich reminder of the school’s history and of its ‘story’.
Those of us and our families who are already part of the St Cecilia’s family are proud of our history and know that we are part of the on-going story for St Cecilia’s parish and school. We welcome those who are new to our Catholic community and invite you all to take forward the culture and traditions to be part of the school and parish community, to work and study hard, to be attentive to one another and to glorify God in all that you do.