Top girls’ school Sacre Coeur to stay the course on fee cut
Top Melbourne Catholic girls’ school Sacre Coeur is sticking to a radical plan to slash its fees by 50 per cent, bucking the trend as other private schools instead opt not to raise fees amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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A Melbourne Catholic girls’ school is bucking the trend, slashing its school fees to recruit enrolments in its junior year levels.
Pre-dating the pandemic, Sacre Coeur College began phasing in the 50 per cent fee cut over five years. While they launched it last year, the momentum was expected to start for 2021 with a goal to lift overall enrolments by around 60 students to 800.
Families of girls enrolling to start this year in prep had their fees halved to $4712 per year or $1178 per term.
The Glen Iris school says the key entry year levels for girls are prep, Year 5 and Year 7 and the move will get more girls in at the early years and hopefully keep them for 13 years.
Sacre Coeur principal Anna Masters said it followed a review last year of the junior school, Joigny, undertaken by the board and leadership team.
“We made this decision as part of a commitment to enable more students to access a Sacred Heart education,” she said.
“The response to the new fee structure has been very positive. We have had strong enrolments in prep this year with many new families joining us and have very strong interest for 2021 and beyond.
“Even before the impact of the pandemic, we were very aware many families were increasingly having to make difficult financial choices.”
Ms Masters said they wanted to ensure greater access to an all-girls’ education from prep.
“Like all schools, we are continuing to monitor the impact of COVID-19, however do not see
any reason to deviate from our commitment. If anything, we are hopeful that it will be even
more relevant to young families today,” she said.
As part of its pandemic response, it has offered a 6 per cent rebate in term two. Parents not wanting to take up the rebate were able to donate it to a foundation to help other families.
Sacre Coeur, which has not taken up JobKeeper at this point, said it would continue to monitor the situation and help families as needed.
Based on current fees in Year 4, the fee is $11,853 and jumps to $14,457 in Year 5.
It then jumps to just less than $20,000 for Year 5.
The school also levies a compulsory building levy of $1250 per family.
The school provides a 10 per cent discount for the second and subsequent sister attending the school at the same time.
The school has a current enrolment, according to MySchool, of 717. Internal papers indicate it would like to have a steady enrolment of 800.
Since 2014 its highest enrolment has been 731.
There are a number of feeder schools in the suburb for the secondary year levels including St Roch’s School, where last year there were 108 boys and 72 girls. St Roch’s has increased its enrolment each year from 2014 when it had 140 students, evenly split between girls and boys.
From 2017, a gap started between enrolment numbers of girls (77) and boys (92). It has an $500 enrolment fee of which $400 is credited to school fees. School fees are just over $3000 per year.
St Cecilia’s School in Glen Iris has about 250 children, evenly split between girls and boys. School fees are $2340.
Sacre Coeur has recently had an overhaul of its marketing strategy and refreshed its brand identity.
Part of the strategy was to get more students at lower years, retain students, offer more bursaries and scholarships and tap into the alumni and share their stories of success.
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