St Mary’s Cathedral College: Inner Sydney Catholic boys’ school confirms plans to enrol girls

A 200-year-old boys’ school and alma mater of the Prime Minister, St Mary’s Cathedral College, has confirmed how – and when – it will start enrolling girls.

Anthony Albanese’s former school is making the switch from all-boys to co-ed. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The boss of Sydney’s Catholic schools has revealed the secret to a smooth co-ed transition, as Anthony Albanese’s high school becomes the latest in a growing list of boys’ schools to open up to girls.

St Mary’s Cathedral College in the Sydney CBD, a boys’ school for the past 57 years of its 200-year history, will begin enrolling female students from Kindergarten to Year 7 in 2025.

The staggered approach will see the Class of 2030 become the first to see the school’s co-educational transition fully realised.

Sydney Catholic Schools executive director Tony Farley said the decision to go co-ed was in response to parent demand, with the “overwhelming majority” supportive of the move.

With the school’s population drawn from all over Sydney, a co-educational offering at St Mary’s “is going to be a very, very popular option”, he said.

St Marys Cathedral College. Picture: John Appleyard

While the inner city college, which currently charges annual tuition fees of between $3,520 and $5,525, already has coeducational roots, several of Sydney’s oldest and most expensive boys’ schools have in recent years unveiled plans to introduce girls to the ire of parents and old boys.

Newington College in Stanmore, which charges up to $42,000 in tuition fees, has seen backlash in the form of a parent-led protest and legal challenge to its decision, after announcing it would go co-ed in stages from 2026.

Parents and Old Boys of Newington College protested as boys arrived for their first day of the new school year. Picture: Richard Dobson

Cranbrook School in Sydney’s wealthy Eastern Suburbs will also introduce girls in the senior years from 2026, a decision which in 2022 contributed to the entire school council resigning en masse.

Mr Farley said Sydney’s diocesan schools have learned to “acknowledge the reservations” of parents who aren’t fans of the move.

“There’s extraordinary tradition, and a sense of belonging that you get with a school. You have to respect that,” he said.

“The key thing is to continue to honour the views and the feelings of those who don’t think it’s the best option, and walk with them through it.”

St Marys Cathedral College will go co-ed. Picture: John Appleyard

St Mary’s announcement follows the City of Sydney’s decision in December to rubber stamp a $19.7 million expansion of the systemic Catholic school’s footprint into the old Peejays Building on William Street.

The approved development application allows St Mary’s, which recently received $5 million from the federal government’s Capital Grants Program, to teach 300 additional students in its new campus when complete.

Principal Kerrie McDiarmid said the school’s second campus, which will cater primarily to senior students in Years 9 to 12 with shared “state-of-the art facilities”, is due to be in operation in 2025.

The co-ed move, she said, will benefit male and female students alike.

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