Top inner-city Sydney NAPLAN schools revealed in last five years

Woollahra and Summer Hill public schools are two of the top-performing NAPLAN schools in the inner city. See the full list of top performing schools.

Deputy principal Sarah Weston with Year 6 students at Summer Hill Public School for World Teachers Day in October. Picture: Jeremy Piper

An independent analysis of five years of NAPLAN results has revealed the schools which consistently performed the best in the Year 5 and Year 9 tests between 2017 and 2021.

Over that five-year period, Sydney Grammar School, in Darlinghurst, had higher Year 5 yearly results than any other school in Sydney’s inner city, scoring an average of 3081.3 each year.

Woollahra Public School was the second best in the area with an average score of 2929.3, while Summer Hill Public School in the city’s Inner West was the third best with an average score of 2863.5.

Natalie Armstrong, principal at Summer Hill Public School, said although there was no one single ‘secret ingredient’, she cited a “relentless focus” across the school to strive to the best.

“Summer Hill Public School is a high-performing school driven by the NSW Department of Education’s relentless focus to ensure every student, every teacher, every leader and every school improves every year,” she said.

Sydney Grammar School topped the list for best NAPLAN results for Year 5 students across the period.

Sydney Girls High School was the best performing school for Year 9 results. Picture: Steven Saphore

“We work hard to maintain our standards of excellence in teaching, excellence in learning and excellence in leading.”

Ms Armstrong said teaching experts and enrichment opportunities gave the school its academic edge.

“The celebration of student achievement is also a highlight,” she said.

“It is through the delivery of current, high-quality teaching and learning programs and extra-curricular activities that our teachers ensure every student is engaged and challenged to continue to learn.”

Ms Armstrong said the school’s students were “well-rounded citizens: socially, emotionally and academically”.

“School leaders measure their success against our statistically similar schools’ group (SSSG),” she added.

“And we share these results with staff and the community when planning for whole-school improvement. The celebration of our success is key in driving continuous success.”

The top performing Year 9 school was Sydney Girls High School, in Surry Hills, where the average yearly result was 3552.0 over the five years.

Sydney Grammar School in Darlinghurst was the second best with an average score of 3497.25, while Sydney Boys High School in Moore Park was the third best with an average score of 3460.25.

To determine how each school performed between 2017 and 2021, their average scores for each year were combined and the yearly average found.

Special schools, schools with fewer than 20 students enrolled in either year, and schools that did not report any results for NAPLAN subjects in either year were excluded from the analysis.

The figures were independently compiled from the Federal Government’s MySchool website.