New high school enrolments must go to Mosman
In a change that has shocked locals, new applicants for Cammeraygal High School will be sent to Mosman High, with Year 7 ‘at capacity’ for 2025.
The change surprised parents back in November, with the school locator on the Department of Education (DoE) website indicating the catchment for Cammeraygal had changed, with Mosman High now a ‘designated school’ for the area. The catchment covers suburbs which are undergoing rapid high-rise development around the Pacific Highway, such as St Leonards and Crows Nest.
North Shore MP Felicity Wilson said she first heard about the change from ‘really distressed’ parents of North Sydney Demonstration School, a major feeder school, where around 30 families going into Year 7 were affected.
“There’s one family (from Wollstonecraft) who told me (their son) will have to walk 1.2km to the bus right past Cammeraygal and then have to catch two buses to Mosman.
“You’re (also) talking about the expectation of parents doing drop offs and pickups (across traffic at peak hour). It is particularly difficult to get across to Mosman and back again, with Military Road one of the most congested roads in the country.”
A DoE spokesperson told NL that school intake areas were regularly reviewed ‘to meet the needs of changing populations.’ In addition, the department had ‘carefully considered all travel factors against the current transport and road connections and the overriding need to manage student population growth using the available school facilities.’
Cammeraygal was set up only 10 years ago, with 860 students across two campuses in Crows Nest, with Years 10 to 12 moved from the Pacific Highway to a new senior campus in the old TAFE on West Street in 2020.
The State Government recently approved 5,900 extra homes for Crows Nest under the transport oriented development (TOD) program. The government has allocated $520 million for community infrastructure across eight TOD precincts, with the DoE saying growth in these areas would be monitored ‘to ensure that adequate capacity is provided to support the future population of the precinct.’
Mosman High has 1,021 students and underwent a substantial upgrade in 2024. It is an ‘amazing’ school, Ms Wilson said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s the right school for you. If it’s not part of your community, it’s hard for you to get there, and it disconnects you from your social network as a young child.
“I think it’s a reasonable expectation that you want to live close to your school. It creates community, it creates ease of mobility and transport. It creates connections between students and friends when they live in the same area.”