Stella Maris College (Manly)


Stella Maris College is a dual-campus independent Roman Catholic single-sex secondary day school for girls, located on the northern end of Manly Beach at Queenscliff in Manly, on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded in 1931 by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, the College provides a religious and general education in the Benedictine tradition for approximately 900 girls from Year 7 to Year 12 from the surrounding area and from overseas.

History

In 1857 Archbishop Polding founded the first Australian order of nuns, the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St. Benedict. The sisters had been looking for a home to look after the growing number of orphaned and neglected children, and in 1880 they heard of a good sized estate at Manly, then unoccupied and in disrepair. It proved an ideal spot and in 1881 was blessed as the Star of the Sea Convent and the Good Samaritan Sisters moved in and set up a school for them.
The sisters taught normal school subjects up to the age of 14, then trained in skills that would enable them to earn a living – mostly sewing and laundry. In 1886 the Parramatta orphanage, owned by the government but run by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, was closed and the Sisters at Manly took in additional charges. In the very early years the Sisters also conducted a small day school for neighbourhood children and a boarding school ‘for high class ladies’ on the site.
In 1910 the orphans were moved to other sites due to the development of Manly, and the Sisters took over the running of St. Mary's school in Whistler Street.
In 1930 the original house was demolished and the present-day Convent and single-storey school were built and the College re-opened the following year with an intake of thirty-three pupils from Kindergarten to Intermediate Certificate, and was a co-educational primary school and a single sex girls’ high school. The primary school was gradually phased out and by 1944 Stella Maris was purely a high school for girls.
The last Good Samaritan Principal left the school in 1995, and in 1997 the Convent was handed over for College use.
Since then there have been a number of extensions and developments to accommodate the approximately one thousand students who study there today.
In 2004 new buildings were opened comprising a theatre, dance studio, drama studio, fitness centre, music practice rooms, and new classrooms, in 2012 a new campus 'Benedict Campus' was opened on Pittwater Road, and in 2018 the Scholastica building comprising a new library was opened.