Our Students and Community
Clairvaux MacKillop College encompasses a wide range of cultural backgrounds and religious views, reflecting global influences. Religious Education at Clairvaux MacKillop College is responsive to these learning needs and
backgrounds, and aims to nurture and develop the intellectual life and faith journey of individuals in ways that are mindful of their cultural and religious identity.
The College is a contemporary Christian learning community focused on the unique person and vision of Jesus Christ and on the best values of twenty-first Century High School education.
© Brisbane Catholic Education, Clairvaux MacKillop College, (2023).
Our Vision for Religious Education
From the very beginning of Christianity, the Christian community has been engaged in teaching. The transformative process of learning and teaching is captured in the Vision of Brisbane Catholic Education to Teach, Challenge and Transform. This Vision is realised at Clairvaux MacKillop College through everyday witness and learning and teaching that challenges and transforms the culture and the world in which we live.
Clairvaux MacKillop shares the Vision for Religious Education articulated by Brisbane Catholic Education and the wider church. This vision includes two dimensions of formation; namely, students’ religious literacy and their personal faith.
Religious literacy includes ways of talking, acting, creating, communication, critique, evaluation, participation, ritualising, exploring theology, worshipping, reading, reflecting, and writing, with others, in a variety of religious and non-religious contexts.
Since 2008, the distinct and complementary nature of both dimensions of Religious Education has been conceptualised in the following Model for Religious Education.
Our School programs, activities and experiences for the classroom learning and teaching of religion and the religious life of the school are responsive to religious diversity, while being faithful to the Catholic Christian identity of the school.
This educational focus requires a critical appreciation of one’s own religious tradition and an empathetic understanding of the religious beliefs and practices of others.
Through engagement with both dimensions of Religious Education, students are challenged to be cultural agents in light of the Gospel; authentic witnesses to the mission of Jesus Christ in the world today. We educate all to live the gospel of Jesus Christ as successful, creative and confident, active and informed learners empowered to shape and enrich our world. Through vibrant and engaging Religious Education, students become active constructors of culture rather than passive consumers.
As in all schools and colleges of the Archdiocese of Brisbane, teaching people religion and teaching people to be religious draw upon the Catholic Christian tradition in ways that are mindful of local contexts and the ecumenical and multi-faith realities of contemporary culture. We aspire to educate and form students who are challenged to live the gospel of Jesus Christ and who are literate in the Catholic and broader Christian tradition so that they might participate critically and authentically in faith contexts and the
contemporary culture
of wider society.