Good Counsel College, Innisfail


The Good Counsel College is an independent Roman Catholic co-educational secondary day school, located in Innisfail, Queensland, Australia. It is a diocese school administered by the Diocese of Cairns. The school serves Innisfail and South Johnstone / Mourilyan and Innisfail's outlying regional areas, generally extending north to Babinda, south to Tully and Mission Beach and inland to Millaa Millaa.

History

Good Counsel College was established in 1975 as a result of the joining of two separate single sex education institutes: The Sacred Heart Girls School conducted by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan and the Marist Brothers' Boys' School. Initially the school was organized catering only to students in years 8, 9 and 10. However under guidance from the school's first lay principal Peter Albion the school was quickly established as an academic institute offering a full secondary education.
In recent years the school has undergone significant expansion both in terms of enrolments and infrastructure, having trebled the number of enrolments since its inception in 1975.

House system

As is common in Australian secondary schools, students at Good Counsel during interhouse sporting carnivals are split up into four houses, they are Polding Marcellin, MacKillop and Clancy, but are also commonly used to group students at assemblies and especially during mass transport to event destinations. Each house has an elected male and female captain, who are responsible for aspects of school carnival preparation.

School song

The College's song is One Spirit in Christ. The lyrics are:
Loving God, You gather us in Your name right here.
Together we are family. We share Hope and Faith, playfulness and
prayer
Loving God, may we enrich each other's lives and grow
Together to reveal our love and show
The loving God that we have come to know.
Loving God, grant us wisdom that we need thought our lives.
Give us nourishment and strength so that we can learn,
And grant us your Good Counsel for us to do what's right.
And here we belong:
One Spirit in Christ - Our Saviour
As free and moral people in a complex world
And with our Mother Mary along beside us
We can reach our highest goal and be
One Spirit in Christ.