By Lucy Carroll
The NSW government will consider the need for a new public high school in the eastern suburbs, an area awash with at least 20 private secondary schools and scarce co-educational options.
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said the government would launch an independent consultation with parents, students and local communities in eastern Sydney about short- and long-term plans to guarantee families had access to high-quality public high schools in the area.
Jessica Roze-Polura is already looking for high school options for her son Joshua, 3.Credit: Janie Barrett
“While there is currently space for more than 2600 additional high school students in the area, I do think it is worth discussing how we best utilise those spaces and make them available to local students,” Mitchell said.
Independent MPs Alex Greenwich and Allegra Spender, who have been pushing for a plan to expand public education in the eastern suburbs, this week met Mitchell and Vaucluse MP Gabrielle Upton about the issue.
They agreed the next step was to consult parents on options for more co-ed opportunities, with many families in the catchment for Randwick Boys’ and Girls’ High limited to single-sex schools.
Spender, the federal member for Wentworth, said families were underserved when it came to public high schools in Waverley, Randwick and Woollahra local government areas, and many families were squeezed out of high-fee private schools and demanding for co-ed alternatives.
Independent MPs Alex Greenwich and Allegra Spender are calling for a long-term plan to expand public education in the eastern suburbs.Credit: Louie Douvis
“We can’t be considering major development of public land without making sure we have viable public secondary school options,” she said.
Waverley Bus Depot and Edgecliff Commercial Centre should be considered as possible sites for a new high school, Greenwich and Spender say, with both locations near parks and public transport. School lobby group Community for Local Options for Secondary Education (CLOSE) East floated the idea of reclaiming the government-owned bus depot for a school in 2019.
“They are both excellent sites and are beautifully situated near green space and transport,” Spender said.
Upton, who has also been advocating for viable public secondary education in the east, said access to public high schools was “simply an issue of equity and choice for our communities”.
Greenwich, who led the campaign for the new $135 million Inner Sydney High School on the site of the former Cleveland Street High, said local families and school P&Cs would be consulted.
“This process will look at school enrolments, what schools in the area have capacity, it’s going to look at the boundaries for the various schools and the question of Randwick Girls and Boys and whether that should be co-educational as well.”
There are at least 20 private high schools in the east and inner-city, and some charge $40,000 for year 12. The six public high schools in the eastern suburbs secondary school community group are JJ Cahill Memorial High, Matraville Sport, Rose Bay Secondary College, South Sydney High and Randwick Boys’ and Girls’.
The proportion of all NSW students enrolled in public high schools has dropped from 61 per cent in 2018 to 58.4 per cent in 2022.
Lobby group CLOSE has long pushed for a new co-ed public high school, warning that surging enrolments at Rose Bay Secondary College are unsustainable. They are surveying hundreds of parents in the eastern suburbs about the need for more public school options and have so far received 700 responses.
The NSW Department of Education has previously rejected a proposal to turn Randwick Boys’ High into a co-ed school, despite community support.
Kensington parent Danielle Ryder said while her preference had always been public schooling, she had enrolled her oldest daughter at a co-ed private high school because she lives in a single-sex public high school catchment.
“There are so many great public primary schools in the east, but there is a real lack of public secondary and barely any in terms of co-ed,” she said.
Jessica Roze-Polura, from Rose Bay, said she was already thinking about high school options for her three-year-old son Joshua because of long waiting lists for private schools.
“We need more options in the eastern suburbs for public high schools. It’s so costly, and public schooling will mean we have more money to spend on extracurricular activities and holidays.”
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