Newington College co-education plan: Construction costs to near $100m, ex school councillors claim

Reconfiguring prestigious Newington College to cater for girls is likely to cost nearly $100 million and could risk the school’s membership to GPS sports competitions, a group of its former councillors say.

Going co-ed is likely to cost Newington College nearly $100 million in renovations and cause academic and sports performances to suffer, former members of the school board have warned.

On Monday, the prestigious Stanmore-based private school announced that for the first time in its 160-year history, girls would be enrolled from 2026. Newington has yet to say how many girls will join, but its aim is to be “fully co-educational by 2033.”

While the move to co-ed has been applauded by many former students and experts, a group of seven ex-Newington councillors – including a woman – are strongly opposed.

Other ‘old boys’ have also gone public with concerns that the school has become “totally confused” about its identity.

In a 15-page document sent to the school’s current administration before the announcement, the group of former councillors argued that enrolling girls would limit choice for parents due to “the dearth of boys-only opportunities for either primary and/or secondary education.”

Within 10km of the school, only 10 of 118 independent schools were boys-only.

Newington College will have to be revamped as part of going co-ed. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

“These schools are characterised … by high enrolments and long waiting lists,” the ex-councillors said, making it hard for disgruntled parents to move their sons.

The group claimed Newington’s improving academic outcomes were likely to be put at risk because of “the classroom complexities and distractions around co-ed for emotionally developing girls and boys.”

The school’s membership of the exclusive Great Public Schools (GPS) sports association would also be jeopardised “as numbers of boys progressively reduce to uncompetitive levels”.

The ex-councillors estimated the cost of “construction required for a transition to co-ed would be in the order of $70m … for the Stanmore senior campus alone” and would approach $100m to include the two primary campuses.

Additionally, they asserted donations from ex-students would decline.

And they argued that girls would have to be at least half of each year group to achieve an “unambiguous culture shift.”

Newington Council chairman Tony McDonald was not available to be interviewed but in a statement to The Telegraph he said “the opposite sex in a classroom will not be a novelty or distraction” because the school was using a “slow” transition model.

The school had a “variety of well-considered and costed options that will ensure contemporary, flexible spaces at our senior school for the next decade,” Mr McDonald said. The likely expense would only become clear once the best choices were selected.

Mr McDonald said “we know that there are some current supporters who may not make future gifts if they do not support our decision.”

Newington College Council chairman Tony McDonald. Picture: newington.nsw.edu.au

On academic performance, he said “critical thinking is at the centre of a Newington education, and we see female voices as a key ingredient in optimising that in the future.” Newington planned “to remain very competitive” in GPS sports fixtures, he added.

On the claim of a dearth of choice for parents seeking boys-only education, Mr McDonald said “Newington has made its decision on the base of what’s right for Newington’s future. It’s not for us to comment on what direction other schools will take.”

The co-ed plan was announced in an email to parents and in a Facebook post. Newington disabled comments on that post, but a third of nearly 330 reactions have been negative.

On Tuesday the school pointed The Daily Telegraph to other supportive social media posts, including by “intellectual history” academic and former Newington student Jack Jacobs, who wrote on LinkedIn that the school had made a “courageous, forward-thinking decision.”

However, four of the five people who commented on Mr Jacobs’ post were critical of the school.

Lawyer and economist James Paniaras responded: “As an old boy of the school, all I can say is who would ever have thought that even Newington College would one day lose its way and be totally confused on its identity, history and what it stood for.”

Allied Forest Products managing director Stephen Chehab wrote: “I am a father of two girls. Both are in an all girls’ school with similar values to what Newington had in the ’90s and early 2000s. I would not send them to Newington if it was co-educational and that has been the general consensus from my circle of old GPS boys.”