About St Philomena School
A Traditional Catholic School
“Sine Deo Nihil”
Without God there is Nothing.
Our Philosophy
At St Philomena School, we value education for education’s sake, and not merely as a means to something else. A true education includes so much more than mere knowledge and includes the formation of a child’s character.
Location & History
St Philomena School was established in response to the concerns of catholic families about the available education choices for their children.
Principal's Welcome
St Philomena School bids you welcome!
Fr Joseph Ockerse
Principal
Our Philosophy
Our Motto
Sine Deo Nihil – Without God there is Nothing.
Our Mission
To provide excellence in Catholic and classical education, for the love of God and learning.
Our Philosophy
At St Philomena School, we value education for education’s sake, and not merely as a means to something else. A true education includes so much more than mere knowledge and includes the formation of a child’s character.
That is why we have high standards in behaviour, manners and courtesy. In many ways, our education philosophy might be termed “old school”, yet at the same time modern methods and technologies are employed to the degree that they are useful. Nevertheless, St Philomena’s is not about technologies and innovative methods; it is about the children. It is about the development of their individual personalities in such a way as to make full use of the various gifts God has given them, and to share these talents later for the betterment of society.
School Vision
The school motto, Sine Deo Nihil, sums up all that we are striving to achieve, i.e. to form Catholics who, when they leave school, will know their Faith, practise their Faith and, most importantly, have been helped to acquire a love of God and a deep desire to serve Him.
We aim to produce young men and women who will leave this school balanced and well adjusted, ready to go out and make the best contribution to society that they are able.
The most important part of education is the formation of character. Someone who has character lives by principles. They are responsible. They fulfil their duty with the proper diligence. They have a good work ethic. They have the courage to refuse to go along with what they know to be wrong while standing up for what they know is right. They choose the good; they reject the bad.
This school strives to be an environment in which your children can be nurtured and directed to grow into mature and responsible adults, strong in the Catholic Faith. The goal is not to form men and women without any ambition to use their talents to further good, but who will rather work to build up the reign of Our Lord around them.
Living the Catholic Faith properly implies striving for excellence. Ideally we use our God-given talents to give back to Him the best of which we are capable. This is the expectation of students at St Philomena School.
St Philomena’s classical education curriculum plays a very important role in the formation of character of our students. Through the study of Latin, Logic, Rhetoric, Literature and History, students need to practise self discipline and diligence to learn and master these subjects. They also develop their memory and their abilities to analyse and express themselves.
A classical education means that students at St Philomena School are exposed to the wisdom gained and passed on over the ages. By studying classical literature they consider examples of what is good, what is true and what is beautiful presented in well written language. By the study of history, especially the ancient histories of the Romans and Greeks, our students learn to understand and appreciate Western civilisation.
St Philomena School’s vision is quite clear: to give every child an opportunity to know their Catholic faith but also have the strength to live it. May St Philomena protect and bless our work!
Location & History
St Philomena School was established in response to the concerns of catholic families about the available education choices for their children. Parents approached the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) to ask for assistance in developing a truly Catholic school that would assist them to provide proper spiritual and academic foundations for their children.
In early 1992 under the auspices of the SSPX and with the assistance of then District Superior, Father Francois Laisney, a small group of parents and friends began the monumental task of establishing a Catholic School in Brisbane. Through the great generosity of Dr Felice and Mrs Marie Zaccari, eleven rural acres at 61 Koplick Rd, Park Ridge, was purchased in February 1993.
Over the next six years parents and friends undertook a range of difficult tasks including negotiations with Council, curriculum development, purchase, movement and refurbishment of buildings, fundraising, and meeting State and Commonwealth government requirements for funding and approvals. Under the intercession and guidance of St Philomena all obstacles were finally overcome and St Philomena School opened on Tuesday 2 February 1999.
St Philomena School has been guided and developed by six Principals:
1998 – 2001: Fr. Gerard Hogan
2001 – 2007: Fr. Jule Belisle
2007 – 2008: Fr. Benoit Wailliez
2008 – 2010: Fr. Brendan Arthur
2011 – 2023: Fr. Karl Pepping
2024 – Present: Fr. Joseph Ockerse
Principal’s Welcome
St Philomena School, as an independent Catholic school of the Society of St Pius X, is a school that strives to deliver an authentically Catholic education. It is only reasonable that one should expect a professedly Catholic School to deliver a Catholic education. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that a Catholic School is one with Catholic teachers, some regular instruction in Catechism and the opportunity to receive the sacraments. A school can only be Catholic when it is directed by the Catholic philosophy of life – not merely as an assumption guiding its efforts, but as a positively inculcated, actual influence on all its activities and across all the subjects it teaches.
Philosophy is but the attempt to answer the ultimate questions of life and most especially the question of life: what is the meaning of our existence on this earth? For which purpose are we here? Only the Catholic can adequately answer this question, for the ultimate purpose of existence is a supernatural end: the eternal happiness in heaven. We could not know the supernatural fact of this end altogether above the exigencies of human nature except by Divine Revelation, which is the exclusive possession of the Catholic Church, the Mistress and Guardian of all revealed truth, and therefore the defender of all truth accessible to the human reason. Only the Catholic, therefore, can know, with absolute certainty, the reason of his existence and can so act as to order his life to fulfill that reason.
Yet the profession of the Catholic Faith is not always united with a Catholic philosophy of life. It often happens that profession of the Catholic Faith is joined with a largely un-Catholic approach to life. As Catholics, we often live by a philosophy alien to the Catholic understanding of life: we live as if, in practice, as if our end is in this life. We make compromises, we negotiate, we attempt to serve both God and Mammon. Yet such attempts are doomed to fail, for eternal happiness can only be purchased by those who are sufficiently courageous to give all that they have in exchange for it. This is thought that should often be in our minds. Do we really foster in our children a Catholic philosophy of life? Or do we foster in them a contradiction of purpose: a profession of Catholic Faith, but a life of purely material interest?
St Philomena School exists to provide the pressing need of educating human beings to be authentically human, which is but another way of saying young men and women who know their supernatural destiny and who live in accord with that destiny. We seek to form young men and women who have a profound grasp of the true, the good and the beautiful, who have the ambition not only to be good themselves but seek to make others good. If we are to achieve success as educators, school and parent must work together to foster in our children, not knowledge simply, but the understanding of truth, not mere conformity to standards, but the cleaving to good with all their heart. This is the great mission of Catholic and truly liberal education, so well summed up in the school vision:
Spiritually vigorous Catholic young men and women who are intelligent, cultured, healthy, vocationally prepared, social-minded and patriotic, formed by a well-rounded education.
Fr Joseph Ockerse
Principal
Address
St Philomena School
61 Koplick Road
Park Ridge, Queensland, QLD 4125
Call Us
Tel: (07) 3802 0088