Facilities

From state-of-the-art centres for Music, Drama and Visual Arts to classrooms configured for interactive learning and sporting grounds that are world class, facilities at St Joseph’s College provide boundless opportunities for every boy to discover and develop his skills and passions, while achieving his best academically.

At the Technology and Arts precinct, students can explore and develop their creative talents in spacious, flexible and dynamic learning areas. The Br Louis Music Centre has specially designed practice and rehearsal rooms and a Mac computer lab for digital production.

The Science wing is purpose-built, while the well-equipped Resources Centre is integral to teaching and learning at Joeys, developing in students lifelong learning skills and a love of reading. 

The College’s acclaimed sporting facilities include eight rugby fields, two football fields, five tennis courts, indoor and outdoor basketball courts and cricket nets, five turf and six artificial cricket wickets, a swimming pool, a 400-metre running track, weights and cardio gymnasiums and a rowing shed located on Tarban Creek.

The College Health Centre provides a professional, on-site health service for students that operates 24 hours, 7 days a week during term times.

And the College has its own beautiful, newly restored Chapel, where regular masses are held for students and the wider Joeys community, and many an Old Boy is married.

Most recently, the College Aquatic and Fitness Centre was completed and officially opened in 2022, and from 2023 work commences on enhancing the Br Emilian Hall, which was built in the College’s centenary year.

Accommodation for Year 10 boarders is dormitory style but gives special regard to privacy and study facilities. Press areas are roomier than those of the younger boys and comprise a bed, large desk, shelving and locker, with a high partition separating each of them. 

The accommodation for 115 boys is in a modern, well-equipped, purpose-built building opened in 2000, opposite the playing fields known as the Back Ovals and next to the College’s outdoor basketball courts.

The boys have their own large common room with kitchen and lounges, where in their down time they can play billiards and table tennis and watch TV.

Year 11 boarders have similar living arrangements to the Year 10s with their emphasis on privacy and study facilities. The spacious press areas in the dormitory-style accommodation are separated by high partitions and each has a bed, large desk, shelving and locker.

The purpose-built, well-equipped Year 11 block is a stone’s throw from the main building and home to 150 boys who have access to a large common room with kitchen, lounges and TV, and games including billiards and table tennis.

The modern, purpose-built Year 12 boarding block has more than 170 spacious individual bed-study rooms with expansive desks and shelving that reflect the academic needs of young men studying for their HSC.

They have access to shared relaxation and recreation areas, including an undercover al fresco dining area with barbecues adjacent to the common room, where there are billiard and table tennis tables, a kitchen, lounges and television.

Breakout communal study spaces in the dormitories are equipped with round tables, whiteboards and screens, enabling the boys to work collaboratively to assist and support each other through the crucial HSC year.

With 20 courses under its umbrella, from Food and Agriculture to Software Design and Development, the Technological and Applied Studies (TAS) faculty is a lively and diverse area of St Joseph’s College.

Many of its hands-on courses are taught in specialist, open-plan, purpose-built spaces. The technology-rich learning environment for design and manufacturing is among the best in the state, allowing boys to develop the skills to use future-focused equipment.

In Industrial Technology, a computer numeric control (CNC) router allows for automated manufacturing, in which boys working with wood produce a file that tells the computer precisely what they want it to do. In Year 11, for instance, this is their own flat-pack furniture design. In the metal workshop, where many boys make equipment for their family properties such as silos, firepits, cattle runs and feeders, a CNC plasma cutter allows for the same computer-based manufacturing using metal.

Students of graphics technology subjects have access to 3D printers, sublimation printers for T-shirt designs, vinyl cutters to produce stickers, and CNC laser cutters for projects using materials such as paper, card, plywood and plastic.

The wood and metal workshops are also well equipped with manual and electrical hand tools, and machinery such as table routers, disc sanders and welders. A sophisticated extraction system keeps the air clean, and theory is taught in newly upgraded seminar rooms that also act as breakout spaces for the boys.

From book clubs and breakfasts to Body in the Library murder mysteries and Japanese Manga festivals, the Br Ligouri Resources Centre is dedicated to supporting the boys’ learning in fun and interactive ways, and to fostering a lifelong love of reading. Its busy schedule of activities and events takes place within a light-filled, book-lined, state-of-the-art facility with soaring ceilings and a variety of settings for boys to study, collaborate quietly or simply read a book.

It is a dynamic and welcoming space where Library staff teach information and research skills to the students and assist them in exploring the Centre’s extensive collection of print and digital resources. The Centre’s website LIBRARYHQ is a rich resource containing links to its catalogue, general research databases and study guides, as well as a Books and Reading section aimed at encouraging and supporting the boys in their reading.

Performing Arts at Joeys brings a tremendous richness and energy to the College community. The music and drama facilities in turn reflect a passionate commitment to not only engaging the boys in a range of experiences and developing their talents, but also instilling in them a lifelong appreciation for the arts.

Music has a central place in the cultural, spiritual and educational life of St Joseph’s College, not least through its 25 music ensembles, three choirs and a deeply held liturgical singing tradition that involves every boy throughout his school years.

Learning an instrument is compulsory for Year 7 students. Each boy is allocated one of the 25 instruments in which tuition is offered across strings, woodwind, brass, keyboard, percussion and voice, and can hire an instrument from the school.

There are more than 20 highly qualified part-time tutors and four full-time teachers working out of the Br Louis Music Centre, which is open and supervised from 7am to 10pm each evening.

The Centre comprises more than 40 practice studios, two large rehearsal/teaching rooms, an Apple Mac computer lab, a music library and a mobile recording facility. The rehearsal spaces double as teaching spaces and each is equipped with Prometheum Smartboards, data projector, iMac control computer and 16 channel sound system for playback and recording.

Students who choose Drama, an elective subject from Year 9 onwards, become well acquainted with the Drama Studio, where several productions are staged each year. The Studio seats 100 and is equipped with a lighting rig, sound system, AV, a set and costume store, dressing room and green room.

Every two years the College stages a school musical, bringing together the dramatic, musical and technical talents of the students in spectacular fashion.

In newly refurbished laboratories in the Br Angelus Science Wing, walls and desks have become whiteboards on which boys brandishing markers instead of biros plan experiments and present research data to the class. The ergonomic and adaptable space allows for collaborative small-group learning as well as individual learning. Students take pride in creating beautiful and detailed work, and take photographs of it for future reference.

The state-of-the-art labs represent the College’s commitment to interactive and engaging learning facilities that reflect best practice in education, enabling all the different ways that boys learn in a contemporary world. The traditional ‘chalk and talk’ teaching method maintains a key place, but Joeys classrooms are also increasingly equipped for other teaching and learning styles that best suit the needs of individual boys.

The modern, air-conditioned classrooms are also equipped with AV and other technology to enable digital-rich learning. Every boy has a Macbook laptop as part of the 1:1 Learning Program, which is supported by wireless internet access throughout the campus and highly trained staff, allowing digital technology to be integrated across the curriculum in a multitude of exciting and engaging ways.