The West Australian’s Real Top 50 Schools: Nagle Catholic College ranked among the top 25 in WA

A Geraldton high school has cracked the top half of The West Australian’s Real Top 50 Schools list, outperforming many of its metropolitan peers to achieve the impressive feat. Co-educational secondary college, Nagle Catholic College, which educates around 1100 students from Years 7 to 12, was the only school from Geraldton to feature on the list, placing 22nd out of 50 schools from around the State. That puts Nagle above the academically selective Perth Modern School, as well as prestigious private schools Perth College, Santa Maria College and Iona Presentation College. The West Australian’s Real Top 50 Schools list indicates which secondary schools in the State are performing above what their socio-educational indicators predict, meaning the results vary significantly from the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank. Elite private schools do not dominate the list and country schools such as Nagle are well represented, as are public schools. Five country schools featured in the top 10 including Manjimup, Esperance, Australind and Bunbury senior high schools, and Cape Naturaliste College. While six other regional schools, including Margaret River, Bunbury Catholic College, Denmark, Eastern Goldfields College, Georgiana Molloy Anglican School and Karratha rounded out the top 50. For the first time, The West’s experts crunched the numbers in a way that attempts to level the playing field and find the high schools performing above expectations by taking into account the factors that most influence achievement. Drawing on ATAR results from the past three years, rather than just one, the rankings also take into account each school’s index of community socio-educational advantage, the number of Year 12s in the school, the number of students taking ATAR subjects and the level of fees charged. Asked why regional schools are performing better than some metropolitan schools, regional education commissioner Fiona Nash said “the positive, supportive and collaborative learning environment in so many regional schools allows students and teachers to work together to achieve their educational goals”. Last year, Nagle Catholic College made the top 50 list of WA’s best performing ATAR schools — coming in at equal 47th with a median ATAR of 82.55. For the full top 50, subscriber-only list, click here.