We offer co-educational Pre-prep to Grade 2 classes, and single sex girl’s classes from Grade 3 to 10. Each subsequent year, we will be opening a new year level through to Year 12.
The College is a project of the Parents for Education (PARED) Victoria Foundation, and is founded on the principles that parents are the primary educators and that schools exist to give parents every support. This support is found in the quality of the academic curriculum, in the way that staff work with students and parents in a unique mentoring program, in the emphasis on character development and virtues in the curriculum, and in the concern that staff and peer example be fully positive and supportive of parents. Home and school are united. There is ongoing support for parents also through a variety of programs designed to assist parents to be more effective.
We place great emphasis on the development of virtues seen as good habits, the building blocks of character. By developing strengths of character such as sound judgment, self control, courage and respect for others, students are better able to use their freedom to make the right choices in life. Human and civic virtues are fostered.
As with the other PARED schools, the education we offer is highly personalised. Selected from the teaching staff of the school each student receives a personal mentor, who is a constant source of support with example, advice and friendship. The mentor meets regularly with the student during term and with the child’s parents at least once each term, reviewing progress, helping with goal setting, and coordinating the services of the College on the parents’ behalf.
It is the duty and privilege of parents to be the decisive influence in the development of their own children. Our mission at Harkaway Hills College is to support parents in exercising their responsibility as primary educators of their own children.
We understand education to be much more than schooling; schooling is only one aspect of education. But schools can and should be a great help through the specialist assistance they provide. Harkaway Hills College recognises its important role in offering expertise in curriculum areas, and in assisting parents to raise their children with a love for all that is good, true and beautiful.
We seek to reinforce key lessons of character, ideals and service to others. While respecting the faith of each family, we offer instruction in the Catholic faith as the basis for a simple and deep love of God.
Our goal is to assist parents in the formation of students in their character development: intellectually, spiritually, culturally, socially and with attention to the whole person.
We hold that human beings are fulfilled by truth and love: love for God shown in habits of prayer, love for the sacraments, and a living faith shown in works, and through love for others in details of constant kindness, generosity and deeds of service.
Each student is important because each is a child of God, called to a personal relationship of love with God and with other human beings. Each human being has an unalienable dignity because of who we are, not because of what we can do.
We hold that human beings are fulfilled truth and love, and that human maturity is the capacity to grasp what is true and to love wisely: to be self-directing in life according to wise and deeply held convictions. We regard virtues as the building blocks of a mature character. We understand virtues as good habits of self management, profound respect for others, fortitude and self control. These human virtues form an essential foundation so that faith, hope and charity may take root in our souls.
We assist students to become young men and women of character. In Harkaway Hills College our mentoring program involving every student is central to this goal. We ask all parents to attend regular face to face meetings with the mentor of their son or daughter to better direct the personal and academic development of their child. Staff example and the work of the College chaplain, College and classroom culture and expectations, and a positive peer group also contribute to formation of character.
Scholastic challenge, professionalism, doing one’s best at all times, and seeing work first of all as service to others are integral to the development of character. We hold that all aspects of school life can and should contribute the development of character: sport, and even mistakes, are seen first of all as opportunities for personal growth.
We offer effective and practical assistance to parents to help them be effective in their parenting role. The College commits itself to maintain close school-home communication and consistency, offer diligent staff example, keep in circulation best parenting practice, and to create a positive peer group. We further assist parents through specific structures of support such as regular face to face meetings and parenting evenings.
The Board of PARED (Victoria) is responsible for Harkaway Hills College, which was founded by a group of like minded parents and friends.
We are proud and honoured to be drawing on the PARED foundations experience in Sydney, which commenced with founding the Tangara School for Girls in 1982.
A personal initiative of parents and educators, PARED Victoria has been set up to operate schools and other educational projects which assist parents in their task as the primary educators of their children.
The founders of the PARED schools have introduced into Australia an individualised system of education implemented in many schools throughout the world.
PARED schools are characterised by many features – prominent among these is –the personalised nature of the education, which seeks to integrate the pursuit of academic excellence, the acquisition of skills and the development of the student’s character. The Personalised Mentoring System, ensures that each child is helped to be the best person he or she can be. It facilitates the partnership between parents and school, the only way to ensure the children receive a holistic and efficacious education.
Fulfilling its commitment to help parents be better educators, PARED Victoria also organises courses in effective parenting through Family Education Australia.
For more information please visit PARED Victoria’s website: PARED Victoria
At Harkaway Hills College, teachers, mentors, parents and staff share a commitment to educate the whole person: mind, body, spirit and heart. Harkaway Hills’ system of personalised education means that character development is integrated into everything we do. There are several specific ways that each student is helped to be the best person he or she can be.
At the core of Harkaway Hills’ educational philosophy is the conviction that parents are their child’s first and most important educators. Therefore a close and constant link between the school and the parents is essential. This link is the child’s personal mentor.
A member of staff, the mentor, meets with the child once a fortnight to follow progress in his or her studies, as well as character, moral and social development. The meetings are informal conversations that help each student grow in self-knowledge, set personal and academic goals, and bring out his or her full potential.
The mentor and parents meet once a term to contribute their own insights about the student’s progress. It is very important that the parents work as a united team and both attend this meeting. Parents and the mentor prepare for the meeting by noting issues for discussion, identifying areas of growth for the child. The mentoring system ensures that school and home work as one.
Fostering the development of character means helping students grow in the good habits – the virtues – each one needs to flourish as human beings, including responsibility, good judgment, resilience and self-control among many others.
The Harkway Hills College Virtues Program teaches our students not just the meaning of these virtues in a theoretical way, but more importantly how they can personally live out these virtues in their study, in the playground, and at home with their families.
In Junior Primary, virtue is taught through themed units of work covering Obedience and Courtesy, Generosity and Friendship, Best Work and Best Efforts, and Responsibility.
In Middle and Upper Primary there are weekly lessons on virtue. The teacher and students discuss the virtue in focus and its practical implications. In future, there will also be input from Secondary student mentors who provide positive role models for the younger students.
There are weekly ‘Mottos’ to bring the virtue in focus and help to integrate it into all aspects of school and home life.
Please find a link to our annual report.
The Christian ethos of schools like Harkaway Hills College is inspired by the spirituality of St Josemaría and Opus Dei:
— God as Father – as Christians we are children of God. Living with this awareness brings peace, security and confidence. We can abandon all our problems and worries, big and small, into his loving arms.
— Holiness in Ordinary Life – by virtue of their baptism, all Christians have a vocation to holiness. This message was at the core of the Second Vatican Council. Pope John Paul II called St Josemaría the ‘precursor to Vatican II’.
“All Christian faithful, of whatever state or rank, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity….The laity, by their vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God.” Vatican II Lumen Gentium
— Sanctification of Work – Christ’s life as a worker is the model for our own encounter with God. For 30 years he lived an ordinary life, loving God and serving others through his work. St Josemaría taught that Christians should be ‘contemplatives in the middle of the world’, living in a constant, loving conversation with God through professional, family, social and civic duties.
— Life of Prayer – St Josemaría taught a very practical approach to living one’s faith, emphasising the sacraments, particularly Mass and Reconciliation, and reading the scriptures, and dedicating time to personal prayer.
— Love for Freedom – Christians have the same rights and duties as other citizens and respect the freedom and opinion of others. They act with freedom and responsibility in professional, family, political, financial and social activities.
— Apostolic Spirit – all Christians are called by their example and by their word to bring others to know and love Christ. St Josemaría encouraged Christians and all people of good will to join together to promote initiatives including youth clubs, hospitals, universities and schools, building a more just and peaceful society.
“Apostolate is love for God that overflows and communicates itself to others…. A necessary outward manifestation of interior life.” – St Josemaría, Christ is Passing By 122
While always respecting freedom of conscience, Harkaway Hills students are encouraged to develop a loving relationship with God. Discovering the Divine in daily life gives them the confidence to contemplate the big questions and the hope that fills their journey with meaning and purpose. Our Religious Education program offers students a solid grounding in the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Catholic faith.
Harkaway Hill’s Chaplains are priests of Opus Dei, a Personal Prelature of the Catholic Church that helps lay people integrate their faith with their family and friendships, their study and professional work, and all of the ordinary circumstances of their lives.
The inspiration behind the educational vision of Harkaway Hills College is St Josemaría Escrivá, a Catholic priest and founder of Opus Dei.
Opus Dei’s mission is to spread the message that work and the circumstances of everyday life are occasions for growing closer to God, for serving others, and for improving society.
St Josemaría was inspired to found Opus Dei in 1928. In 1982 Pope John Paul II established Opus Dei as a Personal Prelature of the Catholic Church. It is currently established in 66 countries and its faithful come from all backgrounds and occupations. About 98 per cent are lay men and women, most of whom are married. Josemaría Escrivá was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1992 and canonised in a ceremony in front of some 250,000 persons in St Peter’s Square in 2002.
St Josemaría had a profound educational vision. He saw that genuine education must be integral, developing the whole person. He tended to use the word ‘formation’ more than education to express the idea that young people needed help to grow in character, emphasising human virtues such as diligence, generosity, sincerity, humility and kindness.
Because he knew that education was more than academics, St Josemaría highlighted that education is primarily the right and duty of parents; the role of the state and the role of schools being secondary. He encouraged parents to establish schools which recognise their educational rights and support their values. Today there are more than 200 schools like Harkaway Hills College across the world.
In a letter as far back as 1939 he said that “parents are the first and principal educators of their children”. In this he foreshadowed later pronouncements at an international level.
“Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” – Article 26, UN Declaration of Human Rights
“The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.” – Article 18, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
“The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable… Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children.” – Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2221, 2223
