History:
St Peter Apostle Primary School is an established Catholic primary school in a rapidly expanding outer-western suburb of Melbourne. The school was first established as part of the Werribee Parish in 1973 with an enrolment of twenty-six students. St Peter Apostle, Hoppers Crossing was proclaimed a parish in 1977. The school enrolment grew quickly in the early years and peaked at 733 students in 1985. Over the past five years the average enrolment has been 676 students and the present enrolment is 627. Our school is now considered to belong to the older and more established part of Hoppers Crossing.
Description:
The buildings comprise three brick complexes and 6 relocatable classrooms and a music room. We also have use of a parish hall and a community centre which are located within the school grounds. The parish church is situated at the entrance to the school grounds. The playing areas include two basketball courts, an oval, adventure playgrounds, a netball court, shaded areas and a small area set aside for the children in the infant grades. The Parish Ladies Auxiliary operates a tuckshop facility for the children.
Features:
We operate as a three-stream school with twenty-two straight grades from Prep to Grade 6. The average class size is 30 students. Religious Education, prayer and liturgical celebrations are an integral part of life at St Peter’s School. Our school is multicultural with over thirty cultures represented. The predominant groups are Italian and Filipino, followed by Croatian, Maltese, Chinese, Polish and Spanish. Approximately 90% of our students were born in Australia but about 50% of these are defined as ESL from a LOTE. background. We have an ESL teacher and a LOTE teacher (Italian). Our school has an integration program. We also offer an after-school Italian program and an Out-of-School-Hours Care Program. A special feature of our school is the new multimedia Library and Information Centre which was opened in June,1997. The parents and teachers co-operate with and support the school community in many aspects of school life. The School Education Board and the Parents and Friends Association allow for parents to become actively involved in school life.