Liverpool Girls and Liverpool Boys high schools set to merge in move dubbed an ‘essential milestone’

Ritzy private schools like Cranbrook and Newington College aren’t the only ones going co-ed. Now the shift is coming for two southwest Sydney public schools.

Two public high schools in Sydney’s southwest have become the latest NSW schools to go co-ed.

Families at Liverpool Boys High School and Liverpool Girls High School were last night (Monday) informed the two neighbouring campuses would be merged into one brand-new co-ed school, with capacity for 2000 students.

Planning for the new build is in the early stages and neither a timeline nor a budget have been confirmed.

However the schools are expected to be brought together by 2027, by which time the state government intends to have given every NSW family access to a mixed-gender education.

Education Minister Prue Car said the new school, which will form part of a ‘Liverpool Health and Education Sub Precinct’, is a “huge investment” that will open up new learning and career opportunities for its students.

Liverpool Girls High School is set to merge with Liverpool Boys High School. Picture: Google

“The majority of families in this area expressed a preference for coeducation, with the increase in student population at the school to expand the range of subjects and extra-curricular activities available for students,” she said.

Liverpool MP Charishma Kaliyanda said the merger is “an essential milestone in creating a ‘cradle-to-PhD’ education precinct” in the southwest city’s centre.

Liverpool MP Charishma Kaliyanda described the merger as a “milestone”.

“Liverpool’s population surge has caused us to assess the suitability of our existing local schools,” she said.

“This redevelopment is about creating state-of-the-art secondary schooling for our modern city.”

The NSW Teachers Federation has urged the government against reducing school staff amid the merger.

“Through robust and sustained investment, especially in the teaching workforce, we can help all students at this new school achieve their educational ambitions,” the union’s senior Vice President Natasha Watt said.

Liverpool Girls High School. Picture: Supplied

“That means maintaining current teacher levels at the existing schools, planning to have enough teachers to meet growing demand and supporting teachers with an engaging and manageable workload.”

The announcement comes amid an unprecedented shift away from single-sex schooling and towards coeducation in both the private and public sectors.

At $40,000-per-year private school Newington College, the decision to go co-ed has been so controversial it prompted a picketed protest. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

In 2023 the NSW government confirmed Randwick Boys’ and Girls’ High Schools will be combined into one co-ed campus from 2025, following a drawn-out and controversial consultation, marking the first public school co-ed merger since Jannali Boys’ and Girls’ were combined in 1992.

In Liverpool, a survey of future high school families undertaken in 2022 found 56 per cent would prefer a co-ed option, while 18 per cent wanted a single-sex education for their kids. The responses from current families, staff and students have not been disclosed.

However, it is understood current parents were far less enthusiastic about the change, and responded largely negatively to the proposed change.

Last month, 20 school catchments were rezoned to allow the vast majority of Sydney families to access a mixed-gender high school in their local area where previously they had no choice but a single-sex school.

Independent boys’ schools Cranbrook and Newington College have also committed to the co-ed change recently despite deeply divided opinions among their communities, and the Sydney Catholic school St Mary’s Cathedral College – alma mater of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – is also taking the plunge.

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