Trinity Catholic College Lismore students have been split between Southern Cross University (SCU) and St Johns College Woodlawn, since the flooding impacted both school campus’ last year.

However, from Wednesday, April 26 - the first day of term two – all students will return under the one roof, at their temporary home at SCU.

The Lismore App recently sat down with Principal Jesse Smith to discuss what this means for students and staff, and what the future holds for the school.

“It's been an absolutely momentous term, but from the 26th of April, we'll have Year 11 and 12 back at Southern Cross University, so the school will be reunited after the events of last year,” Mr Smith said.

“Trinity started at Woodlawn on the 26th of April 2022, so they're returning literally 12 months to the day. There's lots of excitement around that, across the whole community.”

Year 11 and 12 students moved to Woodlawn to ensure that students sitting HSC courses or preliminary courses, had access to elective facilities.

“In particular, things such as TAS facilities for woodwork and metal manufacturing… we needed a hospitality centre… access to music facilities… we needed visual art rooms… all sorts of things to keep these subjects running.”

“At the time, no one in Lismore had this, except for this particular school community, so through their generosity we were fortunate to put Year 11 and 12 there.”

“One of the advantages of coming back together, is that all of those senior leaders have an opportunity to actually lead the rest of the student cohort, and bring back that sense of community spirit across the school.”

During the last week of term, students from Woodlawn and Trinity held a farewell liturgy to mark their time at the College.

“That was a really fitting farewell to that type of partnership, and then obviously we hope to work in cooperative ways going forward.”

“We cannot thank enough Aaron Beach - the Principal of Woodlawn, The Parish of St. Carthage’s, the Woodlawn Community, for hosting us for those twelve months.”

“It was never ever going to be easy - nothing was post flood - but it was made possible just because of sheer co-operation.”

Since the announcement of the College coming back together, there has been a great focus on learning to exist together on a single campus again.

“We’re slightly restructuring how our timetable is, to move back to a conventional sports afternoon so students have more opportunities for sport.”

“Now that the building work at the University is complete, we've got the range of elective facilities, so students will be jumping straight into those from day one.”

“So, there's lots of excitement amongst the Trinity community for all of that, which is very good.”

Whilst students are returning to a sense of normality from next term, the school will be waiting a while longer to find out the plan for their long-term future.

“We're still waiting at this point for the Diocesan School Review Commission report to be provided. The Bishop appointed a set of commissioners to look at the provision of Catholic education across all of the flood affected areas, from Murwillumbah down to Woodburn, we are obviously included in that”

“Their task was to really look at what are the emerging needs for all of these schools, so it's an enormous amount of work.”

“That report will then be handed back to the Bishop, and then the Bishop would obviously be making some decisions. The Trinity Catholic College Council, so the board of Trinity, would then need to work with the Bishop.”

“So that's all still in progress. People are obviously wanting answers, but we have said, once we know, we'll be able to communicate.”

Trinity Catholic College will be holding their Open Day on Sunday 21^st of May, at SCU from 11am until 2pm. This is a great opportunity to go and see what the school has to offer.

“We have been really, really pleased with an absolute avalanche of enrolment applications already. So that's a really positive sign that there is still a significant amount of support for us in the community, and we certainly hope that continues.”