Launched in 2005, the National Network of Marist Schools gives a sense of solidarity in their Marist identity to the member schools.
The National Network of Marist Schools is designed to maintain and enhance the Marist nature of the schools members of the Society of Mary used to staff and to associate like-minded Marist schools in order that through education, people may more effectively engage people in live the Gospel in a Marian way.
Schools in New Zealand without Marist Priests and Brothers, and with lay people wanting to keep the Marist Spirit alive in their schools, signals a new beginning for Marist education in New Zealand.
Members of the network are:
- Pompallier Catholic College, Whangarei
- Marist College, Auckland
- St John’s College, Hastings
- Hato Paora College, Feilding
- St Patrick’s College, Silverstream
- St Patrick’s College, Wellington
- St Bede’s College, Christchurch
- Roncalli College, Timaru.
The concept for the Marist Network of Marist Schools (NNMS) came from three principals of Marist schools, who wanted to keep alive what is special about Marist schools and Marist education.
The National Network of Marist Schools is seen as a contemporary realisation of the aspiration of the first Marists who on 23 July 1816, pledged themselves to form a Marist Society at the shrine of Notre Dame du Fourviere, Lyon, France.
The expression of the Marist Spirit in education always takes on a local dimension, however the Marist Spirit in education is not solely unique to an individual school, and while the expression of the Marist Spirit in education takes on a local dimension, the National Network of Marist Schools seeks to provide a backbone and structure upon which the Marist Spirit in education can not only be preserved, but develop.
The National Network of Marist Schools seeks to:
- set in place a policy that ensures all schools can be equitably serviced
- suggest ways of developing the finances of the Network so it can become financially independent
- be one contemporary realisation of the aspirations of the first Marists who pledged themselves to form a Marist society at the shrine of Notre Dame de Fourviere, France, on 23rd July 1816.