Holy Cross College Ryde

Holy Cross College is a high school in the suburb of Ryde in Sydney, Australia. Its current principal is Garry Williams.

History

The school was founded by the Patrician Brothers in 1891. The school's current site was purchased in 1896 and the main sandstone building was opened in 1898. The orginal plan was for two wings extending out from the main building in a H-shape, but the depression of the 1890s, which at the time was the worst Australia had faced, put an end to the ambition. The main building was bricked up on either side and remains like that today. The college served as a boarding school until the 1970s, when all boarding places were phased out. The college also operated a preparatory school, but it was also phased out in the 1980s to make way for more classrooms and facilities.

Facilities

Holy Cross maintains extensive sporting facilities, including the Frank St oval and Cressy Road oval. The school's Cardinal Gilroy library holds 27 workstations with Internet access and a large quantity of print media including novels of non-fiction, fiction media and relevant magazines. All students are issued with electronically read ID cards which hold credits for printing and photocopying. The music department has one band room and a piano room. The band room has a drumkit, keyboard, acoustic and electric guitars.

Academic achievement

Despite its low performance in the annual HSC achievement table (In 2007 the College was ranked 535th by the Sydney Morning Herald which orders all the High Schools in NSW based on their year 12 student's performances in the HSC, in 2007 this was out of 673 schools) a number of students have gone on to achieve academic excellence. This field includes teachers as Shane Scott who now holds a Premiere's award of prowess in financial mathematics and Paul Dick Sands, a Master of Egyptology.

Sport

Holy Cross College tends to cite its sporting successFact|date=March 2008 especially in rugby league. The college has produced many players for the NRL and the former ARL and Super League Fact|date=March 2008). Teams from the school appeared in the Commonwealth Bank Cup from 1979-1982 (Cup Record) and also 88-89. The college still has strong links to the Wests Tigers rugby league club.Fact|date=March 2008

*Benny Elias (Australian Rugby League Player)
*Paul Sironen (Australian Rugby League Player)
*Chris Anderson (Australian Rugby League Player)
*Tom Tyrrell (Australian Rugby League Player)
*Bronson Harrison (NZ Rugby League Player)
*Mark Riddell (NRL Player)

Holy Cross has also produced two Olympians: Darren Clark (Athletics) and Jim Stride (Rowing).

TEC Program

From 1994 to early 2003, the school labelled itself the College of Lifestyle Technology. During this time it ran a program where students were sold electronic notebooks for $3,000Fact|date=March 2008 and completed all the lessons and school work on their computer. The TEC laptop program ran from years 7 to 8, although students could still bring their laptop to class in later years.

References

See also

* List of Non-Government schools in New South Wales