How students can snag a place at Nossal High School

Thousands of Victoria’s brightest students will battle it out for a place at selective Nossal High School this year. Here’s how your child can earn a spot.

Thousands of Victoria’s brightest students are expected to vie for a place at one of the state’s most in-demand selective schools this year.

Berwick’s Nossal High School is slated to be top choice for more than 2000 Year 8 students when they sit the entrance exam that could offer them a spot at Victoria’s four selective government schools in June.

But just 200 kids will receive an offer to study at the coeducational secondary school.

Principal Roger Page said demand to get into the school was exceptionally high because the school championed surrounding gifted students with like-minded peers.

“Parents are very keen to gain a place in a selective school because of the perceived advantage,” Mr Page said.

“Those students and parents are well aware that the results are almost a given in the sense that we’re selecting high-performing kids, so they (students) should be getting high results and should be performing well.”

Nossal High School in Berwick. Picture: Andrew Batsch

About 3000 Victorian students will sit the entrance exam for a place at Nossal, the boys-only Melbourne High School in South Yarra, The Mac. Robertson Girls’ High School, and the coeducational Suzanne Cory High School in Werribee.

With one central exam for all applicants, the three-hour-long assessment tests students’ abilities with six components across reading comprehension, mathematics, creative writing and persuasive writing, numerical and verbal reasoning.

Applicants have until May to apply online for the exam and to select up to three schools as their top preferences.

Unlike independent schools, the four selective schools do not admit students based on zoning restrictions.

Accepting enrolments from year 9 onwards, Nossal accommodates about 900 students across four year levels.

Students and staff at Nossal High School.

Nossal was last year rocked by scandal when Miss Universe Australia Maria Thattil slammed students at the school who created a vile social media group chat degrading young women after she was accidentally added to the group.

“It was a very disappointing episode for us and caused us to do some significant reflection about the sorts of manners and attitudes that investors were exhibiting,” he said.

“It’s triggered the opportunity for us to address it more directly and highlight and I get a little bit more explicit, so that we can then address it more effectively.”

But Mr Page said the school remained first choice for prospective students because it offered a host of specialist science and maths programs tailored to students’ particular interests.

“It’s about putting a cohort of like minded kids together and giving them a reasonably open ended approach to education so that they can progress further perhaps than they might have in a mainstream school, where the teachers and the schools have to contend with a much broader range of abilities,” he said.