Australia’s Top 100 Public High Schools: SA’s best government secondary schools ranked
Which South Australian public schools are a class above at providing an exceptional and affordable education? See the full list of the state’s 100 top-ranking schools here.
South Australia’s largest public school has been crowned as the best government school in the state, The Advertiser can reveal.
Glenunga International High School, with more than 2300 students in Adelaide’s east, has been ranked first in The Advertiser’s exclusive top 100 list of South Australian public secondary schools.
It tops the rankings ahead of a school whose high placing on the list may surprise some – Kimba Area School on the Eyre Peninsula, which has just 200 students but has recorded fine academic results in recent years.
Three prestigious campuses round out the top five – Marryatville High School, Adelaide High School and Adelaide Botanic High School. The latter opened in the CBD in 2019 and has a strong focus on science, mathematics and technology studies.
Every government high school in the nation was assessed for its academic performance, student attendance level, student-teacher ratio, average fees and level of socio-educational advantage to create the ultimate public education power list – following the success of News Corp’s list of Australia’s Top 100 Private Schools earlier this year.
Glenunga hasn’t always had a reputation for academic excellence, which the school had developed after it launched an “improvement journey” in 2008, principal Wendy Johnson said.
That year results were “not good” as 20 per cent of students were failing their SACE.
The school had “pockets of really high performers” in its teaching staff, “but they were like silos”.
“It depended on a teacher lottery whether you got one of the really outstanding teachers or you got perhaps one of the more embryonic teachers,” Ms Johnson said.
By 2024, results were among the best in the state as more than 50 per cent of student results were A grades, and there were only six grades of D or lower.
“What we did with our students was to say to them ‘this is your life, it’s actually not your teacher’s life … and we need you to take responsibility’,” Ms Johnson said.
“We sometimes cause an interesting ripple with our parents when we actually say we’re not focused on academic grades, we’re focused on building first-class humans, not second-class robots.
“The grades will come when you actually focus on first-class humans.”
Leadership at the school also began “sharing all of our best practices” across its teaching staff and developed framework for “essential practices” to see in the classroom.
Current year 11 students Fahad, Hannah and Iris say they have benefited from the improved approach.
Fahad feels he is set up to study medicine after school – he loves “all of my subjects and I have teachers that really enjoy working with”.
His classmate Hannah has taken advantage of the numerous clubs within the school.
“The good thing about Glenunga particularly is that it’s collated so many students and so many staff members that it does amount to a lot more,” she said.
Iris said “academics isn’t something we actually talk about” – instead the focus is what “drives who you are what makes you capable of achieving”.
Northern suburbs schools to make the list include Golden Grove High School, Roma Mitchell Secondary College, Parafield Gardens High School, Salisbury East High School, Paralowie School and Salisbury High School.
Notable campuses south of Adelaide include Reynella East College, Hallet Cove School, Willunga High School, Seaford Secondary College and Christies Beach High School.
Reception to year 12 schools among the top 100 are spread from The Heights School in Modbury Heights, which has about 1800 kids enrolled, to Lameroo Regional Community School near the Victorian border, with about 190 pupils.
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Originally published as Australia’s Top 100 Public High Schools: SA’s best government secondary schools ranked
