Revealing the schools across regional Victoria drawing in the most students

New government data has revealed the schools across regional Victoria attracting the highest levels of enrolment and the ones declining in numbers.l

Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Primary School. Glenn Ferguson

The fastest growing schools across regional Victoria have been announced, revealing the schools that topped the list and the ones that bottomed out.

Federal government data — which tracked the enrolment trajectories of every regional Victorian school over the past five years — exposes the schools where student numbers have risen and declined the most.

Springside West Secondary College at Fraser Rise comes out on top as regional Victoria’s fastest growing school.

Principal John Goodman said it had been a big change adjusting to the mass influx of students, citing staffing issues.

“It’s been undoubtedly very challenging to grow so quickly in such a short space of time,” Mr Goodman said.

Enrolment has increased by 607 per cent in the five years from 2018 to 2022.

“Recruitment, of course, continues to be a challenge. But with the support of some new initiatives from the department, we are working as hard as possible to cover all classes,” he said.

While managing growth has been challenging Mr Goodman said it had brought “opportunities in terms of programs that can be offered’ and such as “some VCE classes that would be difficult to resource in a smaller school”.

Our Lady Star of The Sea Catholic Primary School at Cowes ranked second with a 386 per cent increase and then St Mary MacKillop Catholic Primary School at Bannockburn recorded the third biggest increase at 276 per cent.

On the other end of the spectrum, the school suffering from the largest enrolment decline at 84 per cent was Laharum Primary School in the state’s west.

Winton Primary School recorded a 76 per cent drop while Stanhope Primary School saw a 75 per cent decline.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority figures are the most up to date enrolment numbers that include all state and private schools nationally.