Did you know that Cranbrook School will start accepting girls in 2026? The Bellevue Hills school aims to become fully co-educational within a decade, after more than a hundred years of being an all-boys school.
After months of consultation about the proposed introduction of co-education in Years 11 and 12, the school shared in a recent communication with the school community and stakeholders that under the new plan, Cranbrook School will begin accepting female students in Years 7 and 11 from 2026.
There are no plans, however, for co-education in Junior School.
The move would mean female students will be admitted into Years 7 and 11 beginning in 2026 resulting in the Senior School becoming fully co-educational by 2029. The feedback, the notice said, was “highly instructive and caused the school to revisit a number of assumptions” as well as consider the issues surrounding the proposal..
The original proposal was for Years 11 and 12 to transition into co-education from 2023. Whilst a broad part of the community supported co-education, many parents raised concerns about the cohort size, the ratio of boys to girls, the potential impact of the transition, and choosing Year 11 as the entry point.
Hence, the final model has considered Year 7 as the entry point for female students which the school said will allow the students to “grow together during their secondary education in preparation for senior years.
The communication furthered that the revised time frame would enable the school to “better shape the overall size of the cohort” and address the boy to girls ratio concerns. Likewise, it “overcomes” the parents’ concerns about having only female students in Years 11 and 12 whilst the middle years continue to be single-sex.
“In order to address both the desire to embrace a co-educational environment, but mitigate or remove the major concerns expressed by parents and alumni, the School Council has determined that Cranbrook should proceed to become a co-educational school within a time frame that minimises disruption to the boys currently enrolled in the senior years and allows for adequate planning to successfully manage the change,” said the notice signed by President of School Council Jon North and Headmaster Nicholas Sampson.
Whilst in the preparation phase, the School will continue with the implementation of the previously announced co-educational activities including the expanded co-curricular program, the Academy enrichment program and the development of an outdoor experiential program at Wolgan Valley for Years 9 and 10.