St Thomas Primary School Drysdale

St Thomas Primary School is in the Drysdale Parish situated in the heart of the Bellarine Peninsula. The school was founded in 1997 and continues its rich history of school, families and parish working together to ensure children are given every opportunity to feel safe and happy at school while they strive to learn, grow and improve. Our School takes enrolments from the Drysdale, Leopold, Portarlington and St. Leonards Parishes.

The school is designed so that the Prep to Year 2 students are housed in four separate Learning Centres of two classes in each. This encourages an environment where students feel safe, comfortable and confident. Each unit contains toilets, locker area, wet area, resource area and loft. As students move up through the school, we enable them to develop strong relationships with other students and the teachers in their unit. 

Year 3/4 and 5/6 students are housed in separate Learning Centres, both of which include five classrooms, extensive shared work areas, meeting rooms, toilets and a fully equipped kitchen. Our Year 5/6 Learning Area also contains a drama/STEM room and an art work space.

Our students enjoy rural surroundings incorporating a variety of play spaces, an oval, a dam, frog creek and a rooster with his hens. Each area of the school has its own fruit trees and vegetable gardens, enhancing the family atmosphere we have endeavoured to create with our building design and class structures.

In addition to our classroom based curriculum, our students also work with Specialist Teachers in Music, Physical Education, STEM, Drama/Art and Italian (Year1-6). We believe in a wide curriculum that allows children to find their interests and then develop their talents.

St Thomas School is a school which operates with the consent of the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne and is operated and governed by Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools Ltd (MACS). MACS governs and operates 292 Catholic schools in the Archdiocese to continue the mission of Catholic education to proclaim the Good News and equip our young people with the knowledge, skills and hope to live meaningful lives and enrich the world around them. Because the good work of educating the young is a co-responsible task led by every member of the Catholic school community, School Advisory Councils have been established to provide a crucial point of connection between the wider school community and school leaders. This governance model was designed to ease the administrative burden on our schools and parishes, allow parish priests to focus on the mission of education in the parish, enable greater collaboration between schools and ensure greater consistency in school policies and procedures. More information on MACS is available at www.macs.vic.edu.au 


Our Location

St Thomas Primary School is located in Drysdale on the Bellarine Peninsula, 94 km south of Melbourne and 21 km east of Geelong. 

Although Drysdale was once noted for its potato and onion production, it has become a residential satellite of Geelong in recent years. 

Our families come from Drysdale itself, the rapidly expanding residential areas of Leopold and Clifton Springs, and the semi-rural coastal townships of Portarlington, Indented Heads and St. Leonards.


Child Safety Statement

St Thomas Primary School is committed to safety and wellbeing of all children and young people. This will be the primary focus of our care and decision-making. St Thomas Primary School has zero tolerance for child abuse. We are committed to providing a child safe environment where children and young people are safe and feel safe, and their voices are heard about decisions that affect their lives. Particular attention will be paid to the cultural safety of Aboriginal children and children from disadvantage or minority backgrounds as well as the safety of children with a disability.

Every person involved in St Thomas Primary School has a responsibility to understand the important and specific role he/she plays individually and collectively to ensure that the wellbeing and safety of all children and young people is at the forefront of all they do and every decision they make.