Stuartholme School


Stuartholme School is a Catholic, day and boarding school for girls, located in Toowong, an inner suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Established in 1920 by the Society of the Sacred Heart, the school currently caters for approximately 700 students from Years 7 to 12, including 150 boarders.
Stuartholme is a member of the Alliance of Girls' Schools Australasia, the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia, the Australian Boarding Schools Association, and the Catholic Secondary Schoolgirls' Sports Association.

History

Stuartholme is a part of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, started in 1800 by Madeline Sophie Barat in France. The school itself was established in 1920 by Archbishop James Duhig, at a time when Reverend Mother Janet Erskine Stuart was Superior General of the Society of the Sacred Heart, and this led to the school being named after her half-brother, Richard Wingfield Stuart.
During World War II the school was used as a hospital, and the students did their studies at Canungra and Southport.
In 1914 Mother Janet Stuart visited Brisbane to meet Archbishop Duhig and thought it was a good idea to buy the property to start a school in Brisbane. The order of the Sacred Heart came to Stuartholme in 1917 because the Archbishop had invited them to run the school.
The foundation stone of the building was laid on 25 May 1919 and in January 1920 the nuns moved in.
On 1 August 1920 Stuartholme was officially opened. In the first year the school was run on the verandas of the cottages. The nuns and pupils lived in the cottages and only six students were enrolled. The number of pupils grew and between 1925–1940 there were 36 students attending Stuartholme.
During the war years many students returned home. The remaining students had to be evacuated to Canungra and later to Southport as Stuartholme had been made into an American hospital.
In the 1960s and 70s young women had stopped entering the religious life so Sacred Heart and other catholic schools were staffed mainly by lay people. In 1983 the first lay principal was appointed, David Manning who resigned in 2003. Kristen Sharpe is the current principal.
In the past 10 years Stuartholme has had some significant changes including a lot of re-modelling, but the Sacred Heart education has remained a part of the school curriculum.

Co-curriculum

Sport

Stuartholme students may compete in sporting competitions conducted by the Catholic Secondary Girls School Sports Association and the Independent Schools Association.
The sports Stuartholme compete in are: Athletics, Australian Rules Football, Basketball, Cross Country, Equestrian, Hockey, Netball, Rowing, Sailing, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Touch Football, Volleyball, and Water Polo.

Notable alumni