Within a few weeks of their arrival the sisters had gathered and divided into classes girls of poor families in the settlement. They began teaching in a room at the rear of an old tavern, the “Rising Sun.” The curriculum included grammar, literature, arithmetic, French, music, needle work, and Christian doctrine. Attendance at the convent school rose from 450 in 1833 to 1,200 by 1844. Later boys and adults were also taught in the school. There were several moves before a new convent was built in December 1844, but the St John’s fire of 9 June 1846 reduced it to ashes. The sisters, who numbered eight in 1846, moved to Bishop Fleming’s farm on the outskirts of the city until Bishop John Thomas Mullock arranged for the construction of a new convent on Cathedral Square in 1850.