Mother Teresa Catholic School in the southern suburb of Baldivis commenced classes from kindergarten to Year Two on February 3.
About 150 students arrived at the new school to fill two kindergarten classes, a pre-primary class, a Year One class, and a Year Two class.
The school, located on the corner of Sixty Eight Road and Eighty Road in Baldivis, will eventually teach classes from kindergarten to Year 12.
It has already received publicity for its use of the “rammed earth” technique for building walls with the use of natural raw materials.
“The rammed earth school is architecturally unique and has certainly sparked a lot of interest in the general community,” Foundation principal Geri O’Keefe writes on the school website.
“Baldivis has one of the fastest growing populations in WA. Market gardens and small farms are rapidly giving way to housing estates and there is no shortage of young families moving into them.
“The school’s early learning facilities will include ‘state-of-the-art’ technology and resources in interesting and colourful internal learning areas and imaginative external areas conducive to creative inquiry – learning through play.”
Baldivis has been home to a parish for the past three years, although a parish church has not been built yet.
During that time, parish priest Fr Geoff Aldous has been celebrating Mass at Tranby College, a Uniting Church school, but from February 9 he will say Mass at the new Catholic school.
“The school is designed in a way that the undercover area can be used for Sunday Mass, which is the way most parishes start off these days,” Fr Geoff told The Record.
He added that the Baldivis Catholic community would be heavily involved with Mother Teresa Catholic School, beginning with a blessing of the school’s staff and facilities.
Although he said there are no immediate plans to build a church, Fr Geoff said a parish house would be built near the school later this year.
“[Building a church] is not our immediate concern, to build up a church as community, that’s our goal,” he said.
“When people want a church enough to be able to build one, that’s when it will happen.
“The Church has got the land but it’s a pretty expensive business these days building from scratch.”
Fr Geoff said while Baldivis is a rapidly growing area, only about 18 per cent of its residents are Catholic, compared to about 25 per cent nationally.
“It’s not what you call a strong Catholic area in terms of the percentage of the population… it’s more of an Anglican area,” he said.