Trinity Catholic College (known as Kavanagh College before 2023) is a Catholic, state-integrated, co-educational, secondary school located at Rattray St, in City Rise, central Dunedin, New Zealand. The proprietor of the school is the Catholic Bishop of Dunedin. The school was founded in 1989 as the ultimate successor of several secondary schools and one primary school. The immediate predecessor schools were Moreau College (for girls) and St Edmund's boys primary school both located in South Dunedin and St Paul's High School (for boys) on whose Rattray St site Trinity Catholic College was established. Trinity is the only Catholic secondary school in Dunedin and is open to enrolments from throughout the entire city.
The name Trinity Catholic College affirms the Christian belief in the Holy Trinity "which is God revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a community of love" and affirms "the Christian values and faith in God that are at the heart of the school’s mission.”
History
Foundation In 1989, Trinity Catholic College, then named Kavanagh College, opened. It resulted from the amalgamation of Moreau College for girls and St Paul's High School (i.e. the Christian Brothers School) for boys. The senior classes of St Edmund's School (i.e. years 7 and 8) transferred to the new college. The junior classes (Years 5 and 6) were accommodated in Dunedin Catholic primary schools and St Edmund's School closed. The religious orders of Dominican Sisters, Christian Brothers, and the Sisters of Mercy were the teaching foundation of the amalgamation. Brother Vincent Jury cfc was appointed as the first principal of the new college. He was the last of the 23 Christian Brother Principals to exercise authority in Rattray Street in the 115 years from 1876 to 1991.Graeme Donaldson, p. 8. The decision to end the tradition of Catholic single-sex education in Dunedin (especially the closing of Moreau College) and to combine the Catholic secondary schools into a co-educational college was controversial especially in relation to senior staff appointments at the new college.Articles "Shock that Moreau thought expendable" and "True equality for women the task" in the New Zealand Tablet 4 December 1985 page 6
Campus The college is located on the former sites and in the former buildings of St Paul's High School (formerly called Christian Brothers High School), the Christian Brothers Junior School and St Dominic's College, between Rattray and Tennyson streets, these three inner-city sites being adjacent to each other. The school tennis courts are on the other side of Rattray St between that street and Elm Row. This was the old site of St Joseph's Cathedral School founded in 1862 and, since 1990, located at 43 Elm Row.
Due to a lack of space, the college's junior classes (years 7 and 8) were accommodated at "south site" (formerly Moreau College) until 1993 when a new 18 classroom block was completed at a cost of $4 million. Further redevelopment in the 1990s saw the completion of a biology laboratory in an extended science block, the construction of a new auditorium accommodating 420 people and remodelled library, music studios and offices.
In 2011, the college expanded from its restricted main site by purchasing buildings and a carpark on the opposite side of Tennyson Street from Otago Polytechnic and thus increasing the area of the college by 25%. Two of the buildings were demolished, their sites becoming a green area used for school recreation. One of the buildings was kept and used for 6 classrooms. That building (on the corner of York Place) had a historic connection with important New Zealand artists such as Colin McCahon, Toss Woollaston, Doris Lusk and others as that was where they was trained. In 2024 after a "sympathetic restoration", the building became the new Arts Block for Trinity Catholic College.Rosemary Baird, "Historic art school restoration for Dunedin’s Trinity Catholic College", Heritage New Zealand Pahere Taonga, 1 August 2024 (Retrieved 13 June 2026)
Name The college was first named Kavanagh College after the fourth Catholic Bishop of Dunedin John Patrick Kavanagh (Bishop, 1957–1985). That name was changed to Trinity Catholic College in 2023. This followed an investigation in which the church found Bishop Kavanagh "failed to take appropriate action over claims of abuse" and "had previously let survivors down badly". From the beginning of 2023, the college was renamed Trinity Catholic College. A dawn blessing for the school was held on 30 January 2023 to mark the change of name and acknowledge the historical mistakes made by the school's previous namesake. Bishop Michael Dooley stated that he hoped the blessing represented a beginning in the darkness which will work its way into the light. Bishop Dooley said earlier that "the new name for the college affirmed the Christian belief in the Trinity which is God revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a community of love." “This name reaffirms the Christian values and faith in God that are at the heart of the school’s mission.”
Overview
Character The college is named after the Holy Trinity. It is a large central city co-educational school which serves the entire city of Dunedin as the only Catholic secondary school in that city. It is an integrated school with a "special character" in terms of the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act 1975. This special character is broadly the connection of the school with the Catholic faith. Preference of enrolment is given to students who have established a link with the Catholic Church through baptism or membership of a parish. Preference is decided by the appropriate parish priest in each case. A preference certificate from the student's parish is required for each student with their application for enrolment at the school. Under the Act, the school may enrol "non-preference" students but the enrolment of such students is restricted to 5% of the total roll. The College does not have an enrolment scheme (commonly called zoning) which means that there is no restriction on enrolment because of a student's location of residence. The main contributing schools to the college are the Catholic parish schools of Dunedin. Enrolments come from both urban schools and rural schools.
Enrolment As of , the school had roll of students, of which (%) identify as Māori.
As of , the school had an Equity Index of , placing it amongst schools whose students have socioeconomic barriers to achievement (roughly equivalent to decile 7 under the former socio-economic decile system).
Houses The college has four houses which were set up to encourage unity and teamwork in the school."Houses", Trinity Catholic College (Retrieved 25 February 2025) The colours and eponyms of the houses are:
Rice - Green - Edmund Ignatius Rice, founder of the Christian Brothers; McAuley - Blue - Catherine McAuley, founder of the Sisters of Mercy; Dominic - Red - St Dominic, founder of the Dominican Sisters; Nagle - Yellow - Nano Nagle, eighteenth-century Irish lay religious and humanitarian.
Sport The College participates in many sporting codes including Athletics, Cricket, Futsal, Rowing, Swimming, Orienteering, Tennis, Touch, Handball, Triathlon, Mini Volley, Volleyball, Waterpolo, Cross Country, Badminton, Basketball, Curling, Football, Hockey, Mini Hockey, Miniball, Netball and Rugby."Sport", Trinity Catholic College (Retrieved 8 January 2025) Through its predecessor schools, the college has had a long and eventful history in Rugby Union, Soccer, Rugby League, Netball and Athletics. Trinity has a particular reputation as one of New Zealand's leading rowing schools.
Culture and performance The college emphasises cultural accomplishment including visual arts, drama, music, dance, kapa haka, debating and participation in a Technical Team. A Cultural Awards ceremony is held annually to celebrate cultural achievement.
Each year, all Trinity College students are given the opportunity to participate in the annual musical in the cast, in the band, or as technical crew. The musicals performed have included:
West Side Story (2002); Fame (2003); Godspell (2004); Les Misérables (2005); The Wiz (2006); The Boy Friend (2007); Footloose (2008); Disco Inferno (2009); Jesus Christ Superstar (2010); Grease (2011); Chicago (2012); Cabaret (2013);
A Dream To Share (montage from past musicals) (2015); The Wizard of Oz (2016); Bugsy Malone (2017); Beauty and the Beast (2018); Annie (2019); Grease (2020); Seussical (2021); The Addams Family (2023); Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (2024); Back to the 80s (Songs from the 1980s) (2025) Disney's The Little Mermaid (2026)
The college art block (the former Dunedin Art School) has a suite of art, music and drama rooms, with the main building dedicated to music and art including a sound-proofed recording studio and practice rooms. The top floor, with natural light flooding in through the many windows, is used for training budding artists, echoing its traditional purpose. Drama rooms are in the adjoining one-story building.
Remembering Trinity honours former students who died in war. Many former Christian Brothers students died on war service during the First World War.Seán Brosnahan, "Taking off the Gloves: Sectarianism in New Zealand Rugby in the 1920s", Otago Settlers museum (Retrieved 8 January 2025) There were at least 83 war deaths from an average school attendance in 1893–1895 of 256 boys meaning that 32.42 percent of boys enrolled at that time died overseas in action. 49 ex-students of the Christian Brothers died in World War II and these are all listed in a roll of honour displayed in the College. .
The silver jubilee (25 years) of the establishment of the merged college was celebrated on 25 October 2014 with a well-attended Mass at the Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin. This was also a celebration of the sesquicentennial of Catholic education in Dunedin (150 years), with each of the city's parishes and schools participating. When Mass came to an end, a plaque honouring the college's three founding orders – the Christian Brothers, Dominican Sisters and Sisters of Mercy was blessed and subsequently placed at the college.Vaughan Elder, "Mass on Grand scale as Catholics Combine", Otago Daily Times, 27 October, 2014. (Retrieved 8 January 2015)
Trinity College proposes to celebrate 150 years of Catholic Secondary School Education in Dunedin in October 2026. In 1876, the Christian Brothers arrived in Dunedin and soon commenced secondary classes.
Principals
NameTermNotes 1 Bro. Vincent Innocent Jury c.f.c. 1989–1991 2 Paul Ferris 1992–2010 3 Tracy O'Brien 2010–2019 4 Kate Nicholson 2019–present
Antecedents
St Joseph's School (1862)