Sunita Somvanshi
Sydney Grammar School is number one in Australia again. The same schools that topped last year’s list are near the top of this one. If you’re a parent wondering whether this tells you anything new, the answer depends on what you think the list is measuring.
Sydney Grammar School has been ranked Australia’s number-one school for the second consecutive year in the News Corp Top 100 Schools list for 2026. Alongside Sydney Grammar, all-girls’ schools Abbotsleigh and Ascham School formed the three best campuses in NSW. New South Wales schools took six of the top ten spots nationally and placed 34 schools in the top 100. Victoria placed 33 schools, with Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Burwood ranked as the state’s best school. Queensland placed 19 schools. The list was compiled by assessing more than 1,300 schools across Australia. Average tuition fees across schools on the top 100 reach $28,000 a year.
Western Australia was excluded from the main ranking. That exclusion matters if you’re reading this as a national comparison — it is not a complete one. Any claim that the list measures every Australian private school equally is not supported.
If you’re a parent in Sydney or Melbourne, the top 100 list may confirm what you already know: schools with fees averaging $28,000 a year dominate the top positions. But the published methodology does not list teaching quality, individual student progress or student-level academic growth as ranking variables. If your child’s school isn’t on it, that tells you almost nothing about their education.
What the rankings don’t measure
The News Corp Top 100 list is a proprietary ranking produced by a media company, not a government school-performance league table. That does not mean the schools listed are undeserving of recognition — most achieve strong academic results and are heavily resourced. But the list is a media product, not a neutral measurement tool.
The criteria it uses — NAPLAN percentiles, Year 12 results, student-teacher ratios, facilities — are measures associated with well-resourced schools and strong academic entry profiles. The published methodology measures outputs rather than the gains students make relative to their starting point. A school’s rank on this list reflects how its students perform on those specific metrics; it does not measure how much academic progress the school generated.
Haileybury is confirmed among the top-ranked schools in Victoria and nationally among co-educational schools. You can compare schools using the Australian Government’s My School tool, which provides independent data on student performance, funding, and attendance across every school in the country.
What is Australia’s number one school?
Sydney Grammar School has been ranked Australia’s number-one school in the News Corp Top 100 Schools list for the second consecutive year. NSW schools dominate the top positions, placing 34 schools in the top 100 and six of the top ten. Victoria placed 33 schools, with Queensland placing 19.
How are Australia’s top private schools ranked?
The News Corp list uses academic results including NAPLAN, Year 12 outcomes, attendance rates, student-teacher ratios, socioeconomic factors and school facilities. The methodology is proprietary. Western Australia is excluded from the 2026 edition. Average fees across the top 100 reach $28,000 a year.
Are school rankings reliable?
The News Corp Top 100 list measures specific academic outputs — NAPLAN results, Year 12 outcomes, student-teacher ratios, attendance and facilities. It does not measure all factors that matter to families. A school’s absence from the list indicates it did not score highly on those specific metrics, not necessarily that it is underperforming. State-specific breakdowns are available separately. National NAPLAN data for 2026 will provide a further reference point for comparing schools when released.
