St Francis de Sales College

Our story

The school’s story starts in 1902, when Sisters of Mercy from Broken Hill and inland New South Wales set up a convent at Mount Barker, with a day school, a girls’ boarding school and a primary school, all called St Scholastica. By 1945 it had 46 day students and 64 boarders. In 1959 it moved down the hill into a new building the Irish sisters called ‘The Dell’, a name it still carries; the building was redeveloped in 2024 for senior classes and the performing arts.

The Sisters of Mercy left in 1977 and the next year it became Mount Barker Parish School, with lay staff. It was renamed St Francis de Sales Parish School in 1986, and after years of requests for a Catholic secondary school in the Hills, approval came in 1998. In 1999 it became St Francis de Sales College, a Reception to Year 12 Catholic co-educational college, and its first Year 12s graduated in 2003. It now has more than 1,100 students.