Parents who spent millions of dollars buying into a top-performing public school’s catchment feel short-changed after the enrolment boundary was rezoned to deal with population growth.
About a dozen streets in Sydney’s Hills District have been affected by changes to the Kellyville Public School catchment. Future students have been told they must leave their suburb and attend nearby Beaumont Hills Public School.
Kellyville’s median house price is $1.9 million.
Bin Zhao wanted his daughter to start kindergarten at Kellyville next year. They will now have to cross four-lane Samantha Riley Drive to walk to school.
“We purchased house in the catchment, and we paid a bit of money for the house, just for this school,” he said.
“It is about fairness. We are walking distance from the school. They just made this change on October 15 last year, just two months before the 2026 enrolment.”
Bin Zhao and Emma Gong and their 2-year-old daughter Chloe outside their house they moved into because it was in Kellyville’s catchment area.Credit: Steven Siewert
More than 400 people have signed a petition urging the education department to reconsider the changes on safety grounds. About 70 people opposing the change attended a meeting in December.
Kellyville MP Ray Williams acknowledged population growth necessitated boundary changes but said there were significant safety concerns with directing students to cross Samantha Riley Drive.
“It is an extremely busy road with a bad history of accidents,” he said.
Williams wrote to Education Minister Prue Car about the change and received a response last month from the Department of Education official Taka Bodiam, who said it was due to population growth.
“This is especially the case in areas of high growth like Bella Vista and Kellyville, where enrolment dynamics can shift rapidly,” the reply read.
Ben Zhang from the Kellyville Public School Catchment Action Group said it appeared residents had been displaced to accommodate the influx of residents from high-density developments near Kellyville metro station.
Kellyville Public School has some of the best NAPLAN results in the country. Last year, students in both years 3 and 5 achieved above-average, statistically similar results in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy.
Mother-of-two Lin Ma said that, while the department would not admit the differences in school reputation or performance, “enrolment patterns speak for themselves”.
“If overcrowding is truly the issue, why are new families from Bella Vista and recently approved apartments being introduced while long-term residents are being displaced?”
An artist’s impression of higher density at Kellyville and Bella Vista metro stations.Credit:
Luke Falkner, who bought a house in Kellyville 18 years ago because it was affordable, said he simply wanted his two-year-old daughter to be able to walk to school when she reached kindergarten.
“Kellyville is walking distance whereas Beaumont Hills is not,” he said.
Chirag Anandwala, who has a two-year-old son, said he bought his house in part because it was in the Kellyville Public catchment.
“People are wondering if they will have to shell out extra dollars for a private school,” he said.
Kellyville family Prachi Patel and Chirag Anandwala, with their son Ruhaan Anandwala, have changed school catchments. Credit: Steven Siewert
A department spokeswoman said: “We carefully consider all factors against the current transport and road connections and the overriding need to manage student population growth using the available school facilities.”
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