South Australia’s overflowing schools: Search the data as city high schools exceed their enrolment capacity

Adelaide’s city high schools are overflowing and others face spiralling enrolments – search our table to see if your local schools are nearing capacity.

Adelaide’s two city high schools are projected to be hundreds of students over their combined capacity next year, as new modelling reveals the schools under the most enrolment pressure across the state.

In addition to short-term measures for 2022, the Education Department says it may have change rules to stop families temporarily moving into the shared CBD high school zone just to secure places, if the demand boom continues in future years.

Department boss Rick Persse said the huge pressure from the northern side of the zone could even lead to a business case being prepared for a new high school to fill the gap between Adelaide Botanic High and Roma Mitchell Secondary College at Gepps Cross.

Two years after the storm of controversy over the State Government’s decision to shrink the city zone, cuts to places in special interest programs for out-of-zone students are among immediate measures being considered to cope with the surge.

The modelling also predicts Brighton Secondary, Woodville High, The Heights School and Le Fevre High, plus a number of other secondary, primary and regional schools, will be over capacity next year.

Despite a $1.3bn investment in upgrades and new schools to cope with the shift of Year 7 into high schools next year and other population pressures, some schools – even freshly expanded ones – will need transportable classrooms added as well.

The department’s enrolment projections for 2021 and 2022, uncovered by Opposition education spokesman Blair Boyer through a Freedom of Information request, were done last November.

They showed Adelaide High would be 95 students over its 1450 capacity this year, and 125 over its expanded 1800 maximum next year.

Adelaide Botanic High, which opened in 2019 and will finally offer all year levels in 2022, was projected to be 113 students over its 1250 limit next year.

Mr Persse said the city schools were under “a lot of pressure” because parents of 95 per cent of in-zone students who had attended public primary schools wanted places at Adelaide or Botanic. Previously a greater portion was lost to the private system.

Moreover, 20 per cent of Year 8s in the CBD high schools were from families who had only just moved into the zone in the February-May enrolment period the previous year – way above the figure even for sought-after suburban schools such as Glenunga International High. Then the next year, 20 per cent of Year 9s – though not all the same students – were changing to out-of-zone addresses.

Adelaide Botanic High School opened in 2019 as South Australia’s first “vertical” high school.

Mr Persse said it was “perfectly legal” under current rules for parents to, for example, rent a city apartment for 12 months in order to gain enrolment to a prized public school. And he’d “forgive people” for comparing a year’s rent against the cost of a private secondary education.

“(But) that’s not really what’s supposed to happen. You’re supposed to go to your local school,” he said, adding rules may need “adjusting” to ensure anyone “gaming” the system “isn’t taking the spot of a kid who is (genuinely) in the zone”.

Currently, families must prove at the time of enrolment, such as by presenting a lease, that they will be living in the city zone for at least a year.

Mr Persse said to his knowledge, no in-zone students had missed out, as long as parents had applied within the enrolment period, and he was intent on keeping it that way.

A concept image of Adelaide High School’s upgrade to raise its capacity to 1800 students.

He said in the first instance there was no “one easy fix” and it was likely a combination of strategies would be needed, such as adding transportables – “though there’s no doubt it’s harder in the parklands” – and making more efficient use of current teaching space.

“We’re in conversation with both principals at the moment. There’s absolutely the potential to improve (how space is used) but we won’t do anything silly either. We’re not going to have kids stacked on top of each other or operating out of tents,” he said.

“Equally ... we may need to temporarily reduce the amount of special entry (places) to out-of-zone kids to get over a particular bubble that’s coming through.”

However, he stressed that special interest programs, including languages, cricket and rowing at Adelaide High, were “part of the fabric” of schools and “we’re very loath to be mucking around with those things”.

Mr Boyer, who had to push for the release of the figures after his initial FOI request was denied, said he was aware of an in-zone – albeit late-applying – family told that not only were the city schools out of the question, so were Glenunga, Marryatville and Norwood Morialta.

They were redirected all the way to Avenues College at Windsor Gardens.

Opposition education spokesman Blair Boyer in State Parliament. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

Mr Boyer said the government’s under-investment and“failure to deal with enrolment pressure is already seeing families who live inside the zone unable to find a place for their child at either school”.

“Many families buy a house, the biggest purchase of their lives, in the zone so their kids can access those great public schools. Those families deserve some certainty,” he said.

Education Minister John Gardner blamed the former Labor government for failing to concede the need for a second city high school for too long.

“The fact is that the community wants its leaders to focus on solving problems and delivering better services, and that’s what the government is doing with our record $1.3bn education build and reforms to our schools to ensure they are truly world class,” he said.

It can also be revealed:

DEMAND for CBD high schools has grown at least three times faster than the 6 per cent rate across the public system over the past five years.

IT is being driven by urban infill in the Prospect area and, if that pressure continues, Mr Persse said there may be need to mount a business case for a new inner-northern high school.

MOVES to crack down on families temporarily moving house just to gain enrolments would only be considered for school zones “under significant and sustained pressure”.

SCHOOLS are having to deal with parents who turned up with children on the first day without any enrolment.

NORWOOD Morialta High may need transportables on top of $53m being spent on the project to consolidate on one campus next year.

MARRYATVILLE HIGH will receive transportables by the end of this year to expand capacity by 200 students.

THERE are enough new transportables left as a safety valve to add a total of 680 more places at various schools.

BRIGHTON Secondary may need to reduce special interest places, while The Heights may need to lower its out-of-zone intake.

MARK Oliphant College would be well over capacity next year if not for the planned opening of the new Riverbanks College.

ANY policy to force students to switch schools if they moved to live in another zone would be a “last resort” and, Mr Persse said, “we’re a long way off that lever, that’s my guess, but who knows?”

Mr Persse said the shift of Year 7 into high schools “flips the (capacity) problem” from some primary schools being the ones “heaving with kids” to pressure on high schools.

He said capacity pressures included improvements in the performance of public schools luring parents, pandemic-related financial issues driving some families out of the private system, and the fact fewer South Australians were moving interstate.