Top 100 Public High Schools: Australia’s poshest state school parents ranked – see who’s above their private school counterparts
Australia’s Top 100 Public High School parents are among the poshest in the nation, new data shows. See our exclusive lists, and find out why it matters.
Australia’s Top 100 public high schools have some of the poshest parents in the nation, with up to 80 per cent coming from the top socio-demographic quarter of the population.
Many of Australia’s state secondary school parents are more highly educated and have higher status jobs than those sending their children to a number of Top 100 private schools, a new analysis of federal government data shows.
Each school in Australia is given a score for its socio-educational advantage, which takes into account parental education and parental occupation. It’s reported by bottom, lower middle, upper middle and top quarters.
Any figure higher than 25 per cent signals higher than average levels of advantage.
Experts argue these factors – especially parent education levels – are some of the most important indicators of a child’s academic pathway.
The school with the most educated and professionally advantaged parents in the Top 100 public high schools list is James Ruse Agricultural High School in Carlingford NSW. The leading school – the state’s only agricultural high school that doesn’t offer boarding – has 80 per cent of parents in the top quarter.
Close behind are parents from the Queensland Academy for Science, Maths and Technology, Perth Modern and Northern Beaches Secondary College Manly Campus, all of which have 79 per cent of parents in the top socio-education quarter.
They are followed by Normanhurst Boys and Hornsby Girls High Schools on 76 per cent and Girraween High School on 75 per cent, which are all in NSW, and make up that state’s poshest schools.
These schools have a higher parental status than those at other leading private schools such as Melbourne Grammar (75 per cent) and Scotch College in Victoria (77 per cent) and St Peter’s College in Adelaide (67 per cent).
The highest-ranked top 100 public high schools in Victoria are MacRobertson Girls High School, and Melbourne High, both of which have 69 per cent of parents in the top socio-educational quarter.
They are followed by Princes Hill Secondary College, which has 65 per cent of parents in the top quarter.
In Queensland, there’s a big gap between the parents from Queensland Academy for Science, Maths and Technology, with 79 per cent in the top quarter, and the next, which is Indooroopilly State High School, where 59 per cent of parents are in the top quarter.
This is followed by Brisbane State High parents on 58 per cent and Kelvin Grove High School parents on 55 per cent.
In South Australia, the public high school with the poshest parents is Glenunga International High School, which has 60 per cent of parents in the top quarter, followed by Marryatville (49 per cent) and Adelaide Botanic High School (43 per cent).
In Tasmania,the most educated and professionally advanced parents have children that attend Tooroona High School (49 per cent), followed by Woodbridge School (21 per cent) and Riverside High (21 per cent).
In the Northern Territory, the poshest parents send their children to Darwin Middle School (35 per cent in the top quarter), followed by Katherine School of the Air (24 per cent) and Nightcliff Middle School (21 per cent).
In Western Australia, the school with the parents with the highest education and professional status after Perth Modern School is Shenton College on 65 per cent, followed by Rossmoyne Senior High School on 53 per cent.
In the Australian Capital Territory the school with the poshest parents is Telopea Park School (67 per cent in the top quarter), followed by Lyneham High School (59 per cent) and Alfred Deakin High School (53 per cent).
One study by University of Queensland researchers found parental educational and professional status is a key factor in determining which kids with the same NAPLAN marks end up at uni and which do not.
Those with more educated parents with higher status jobs are more likely to do tertiary studies than those whose parents are less educated and have lower status jobs – even when the children have the same school grades.
Professor Wojtek Tomaszewski from the University of Queensland and his team found the impact of parental education and professional status is more pronounced in the middle group of students academically.
“Those who perform well academically almost all go to uni whether they are well off or not,” Professor Tomaszewski said.
“At the other end of the spectrum those who perform at low levels who rarely go to uni. But in the middle, if you have two students with the same NAPLAN, the one with parents with a high socio-economic status is more likely to get to uni than the one from a lower socio-economic status,” he said.
“It’s more likely their parents have gone to uni and want it for their kids; they want the same markers of status and the same achievements.”
Such high-achieving parents help to lift the aspirations of others in the school, creating a general expectation of academic success.
The public school parent figures can be compared to parents from the leading private school according to the Top 100 list. The top was Sydney Grammar, which had 93 per cent of parents in the top quarter, followed by 71 per cent of parents from Haileybury, 80 per cent from Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Melbourne, 73 per cent of parents from Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Sydney and 80 per cent from Brisbane Girls’ Grammar.
Do you agree that parent status matters – even in public high schools? Leave a comment below or email us at education@news.com.au
Originally published as Top 100 Public High Schools: Australia’s poshest state school parents ranked – see who’s above their private school counterparts
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