What is a Classical Education?

A classical approach to learning sees education as having more than just job-ready skills as its goal. More than this, the purpose of education is to cultivate wisdom, virtue, and authentic freedom in our students, teaching them to apprehend and love what is True, Good and Beautiful. For these things are ordered towards that ultimate end we are all made for - to know, love and serve God. In this way, whether a child will one day become a doctor, an electrician, a mother, an artist, a lawyer, or a priest, a classical education is an education for every student.

Classical education focuses on grammar, logic, rhetoric as well as literature, philosophy, history and theology. At Newman College, these disciplines will be integrated into the usual subjects required by the national curriculum, as well as being explored in our school-based subject of 'Classical Studies' in the primary years.

Ours is an integrated education that intentionally works against the fragmentation of the typical Australian classroom. What students study in history will be reflected in the books they're reading in English and the great philosophers and saints they're learning about, whose works give expression to the defining ideas of that age.

Often referred to as 'the best that has been thought and said', the Great Books are an umbrella term for the defining works of the Western World. Our students will embark on an age-appropriate journey through the greats - from Beatrix Potter and Aesop's Fables through to Aristotle and Dostoevsky. With their roots in Western Civilisation, these works are deeply connected to the history of the Church and explore the most fundamental questions of human nature and salvation.

A classical education returns to the traditional methods of instruction, with a strong focus on reading in the early primary years. This is because reading is the essential foundation upon which future learning is built.