Sixth leading Brisbane secondary school unveils plans for Years 5/6
A sixth top Brisbane private secondary school in less than a year has announced plans to add Years 5 and 6. Here’s what is driving the trend.
Southeast
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Coorparoo’s Loreto College has applied to the Non-State Schools Accreditation Board to add Year 5 in 2025 and Year 6 in 2026.
If approved it would become the sixth top Brisbane secondary private school to make the move and came only a week after Brigidine College in Indooroopilly applied to NSSAB.
Loreto principal, Kim Wickham, said the application followed a comprehensive strategic review and consultation process.
“Loreto College Coorparoo will celebrate its centenary in 2028 and this major milestone
provides an opportunity to reflect on both the College’s history and our future evolution,”
Mrs Wickham said.
“Introducing a junior school would enable the College to remain responsive to the needs
and wishes of our community, by continuing to fulfil its mission and providing even more
opportunities for families and their daughters to access a Catholic education founded in the
tradition of Mary Ward.”
If approved, Loreto would start about 50 Year 5 students in 2025, with a total of 100 Year 5 and Year 6 students by 2026.
That would boost total school enrolment to about 1000.
“Year 5 and Year 6 students would learn within purpose-designed classrooms and facilities
with specialist teachers, in consideration of their unique academic, social and pastoral
needs, as well as benefit from our rich extra-curricular program across sport, culture and
service, ” Mrs Wickham said.
“Loreto College Coorparoo was proudly recognised with excellence awards at the 2021 and
2022 Australian Education Awards and is committed to upholding these high standards of
education in the creation of our proposed junior school.”
The outcome for Loreto’s application would be known in early 2023.
Unprecedented demand among parents for limited places in Brisbane’s best schools has been driving the expansion.
Brigidine College in Indooroopilly announced last week that it had applied to NSSAB to open a new junior school in 2024, welcoming students in Year 5 and Year 6 for the first time.
It was looking at adding two classes of 25 students in Year 5 and two classes of 25 students in Year 6.
In July, leading Catholic boys’ secondary school Marist College Ashgrove announced it would be able to take in an extra 100-plus students from 2024, when a new primary years building opened.
Year 5 would become MCA’s major intake year, with 65 more students able to be accommodated in that year level.
About 40 extra Year 7 students would also be accepted.
The same month, top Toowong Catholic girls’ secondary school Stuartholme School announced it would add Years 5 and 6 from 2024.
Work on a dedicated new junior school precinct would start next year.
And last year, prestigious girls’ school St Rita’s College in Clayfield announced it would take students from Year 5 this year and Year 6 from 2023, while All Hallows’ School in the CBD and St Paul’s School Bald Hills introduced extra classes for Year 5.
A number of private boys’ schools offered enrolments from Year 5, including Brisbane Grammar School and St Joseph’s College Gregory Terrace, both in Spring Hill.
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