Australia’s Top 100 Schools: Where your kids will get the best private education

This is the first definitive list of the nation’s 100 best private schools – based on data, not opinions and reputation. And there was one clear winner when it came to co-ed versus single sex.

It’s a power list like no other as News Corp today unveils Australia’s Top 100 Private Schools – the ultimate ranking of the country’s best fee-paying institutions.

The schools that made this highly coveted list aren’t only featured due to their world-class academic performance.

Instead, the nation’s very best are ranked as the result of rigorous analysis of over 20 metrics, including campus facilities, student-teacher ratios and funding levels – as well as their breadth of subjects, sports and extra-curricular activities.

So who came out on top? Boys’ school Sydney Grammar is crowned as the best in the nation due to its sterling mix of results and facilities.

Second on the exclusive list is Victorian powerhouse education provider Haileybury – the leading co-ed school in the country according to this formula.

Identically named girls’ schools Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Burwood, Victoria and Croydon, NSW are next, with Brisbane Girls’ Grammar rounding out the first five.

A clear trend is apparent at the top of the list, which did not assess WA schools – 18 of the top 20 are single-sex institutions.

Over the next four days, exclusive data will be revealed about every top 100 school, starting with profiles of their inspiring student leaders on Friday.

On Saturday, we will reveal their leaders’ salaries – a closely guarded secret at most institutions.

And on Sunday, the assets of the schools will be revealed, showing the top 100 schools have a combined total worth that exceeds the assets of the 1000 poorest schools combined.

WHY SINGLE-SEX SCHOOLS DOMINATE

Sydney Grammar School is one of eight all-boys schools to win a spot in the top 20, which also includes 10 all-girls’ schools.

Just two – second-placed Haileybury, which has four campuses across Melbourne, and St Leonard’s College in Melbourne’s Brighton East in eighth spot – are coeducational.

Half of the schools in the first 20 positions are located in Victoria, eight are in NSW and just two are in Queensland.

The result comes as no surprise to Loren Bridge, regional executive director of the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools.

“Despite debates about coeducation versus single-sex education, the data continues to back what many educators and parents already see first-hand – girls’ schools are consistently punching above their weight,” Ms Bridge said.

Loren Bridge, Australian regional director of the International Coalition of Girls' Schools, with Pymble Ladies' College year 10 students Zoe Manning, 16, Isabelle Port, 15, and Arin Yoon, 16. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Ms Bridge said the all-girls’ domination in the rankings backed up ICGS’s own “compelling” research showing girls fared better in single-sex schools “from academic performance to leadership, wellbeing to confidence and participation in STEM”.

She said the study – conducted in partnership with US-based Challenge Success, which is connected to Stanford University and involves 15,000 students around the world – revealed girls’ schools fostered a “significantly stronger sense of belonging, a key predictor of academic engagement and success”.

“Students who feel they belong are more likely to participate, take healthy risks, ask questions, and persist through challenges. In fact, the research found that girls in single-sex schools were more engaged in learning, had more supportive relationships with teachers, and were more likely to feel respected and valued in the classroom,” Ms Bridge said.

“Belonging directly correlates with stronger academic performance and greater resilience. It also builds the confidence girls need to take the lead – in science labs, on sports fields, and in school leadership roles that are, by definition, held entirely by girls.”

Ms Bridge said many female students thrived and excelled in coeducational settings but “even with the best intentions, gender dynamics can muddy the waters”.

“Girls may self-censor in discussions, shy away from leadership, or opt out of male-dominated subjects,” she said.

Dr Terry Fitzsimmons, who co-authored a 2018 study that found girls’ confidence was as high as boys’ in single-sex schools but considerably waned from Year 7 in co-ed environments, said the debate about single-sex schools was restricted by a lack of comprehensive research.

He said the results of his paper – which surveyed 10,000 students from Year 7 to Year 12 in the best-performing Queensland schools – were even more pertinent now with the rising influence of toxic masculinity and the threat it posed for young women.

Dr Terry Fitzsimmons from the University of Queensland.

The University of Queensland academic said a comprehensive study involving hundreds of thousands of students across the country would help determine the best way to teach young people.

But the main stumbling block is economic – it could cost up to $5m to conduct a study of that size.

“There are very, very few large-scale studies that give an understanding of the impact of single-sex education,” he said.

“It’s a good discussion to have right now, with boys’ and girls’ schools going co-ed but we just don’t have the information.”

A 2023 discussion paper by the Kathleen Burrows Research Institute showed that enrolments for all-girls’ schools in Australia were growing, with a five-year increase of 3000 students to 2023.

It said analysis of NAPLAN results showed single-sex schools had “slightly higher” scores than co-ed schools.

Cian Bowes excelled in a single-sex school and is now travelling the world with his university studies. He attended Sydney Grammar School and was its senior prefect in 2021.

The 22-year-old, who is studying law and international security studies at Australian National University in Canberra, said its laser-sharp focus on how boys learn allowed him to “thrive academically”.

Cian Bowes on his last day at Sydney Grammar School.

He’s been studying on exchange in Spain for a double degree in law and international security studies.

“Generally girls tend to mature a bit earlier than boys as they go through puberty emotionally and physically, whereas boys are maybe a little bit later,” Mr Bowes said.

“The cohorts (in a single-sex school) are all at the same sort of stage of their maturity and ability to listen and take in information.”

Mr Bowes said there was also a “degree of removal of distraction” without girls on campus.

“I would have been more distracted and thought about other things such as sporting prowess or whatever else had I been in a mixed co-ed school. I think being in a single-sex school allowed myself and lots of the boys in my cohort to thrive either academically or thrive musically, some thrived in sport ... we still just respected one another for what we’re good at and what we enjoyed and we’re passionate about rather than any sort of stereotypical gender association.”

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Originally published as Australia’s Top 100 Schools: Where your kids will get the best private education