Long heralded as a bastion of sporting success, Bally Boys has stepped into the spotlight in recent years with soaring academic achievements. What is this non-selective school getting so right? Catherine Lewis reports.
When the first young men tumbled through the gates of Balgowlah Boys High School in July 1954, staff focused on future feats at the five-acre site. Little did they know that the school would one day be held up as a beacon of educational prowess. Now, as a campus of Northern Beaches Secondary College, days at the deep-end of HSC rankings are a distant memory, with The Sydney Morning Herald naming it the top non-selective public school in NSW for the past two years. So, with NAPLAN research showing that boys are over-represented amongst ‘academically vulnerable’ students across the country, how has Balgowlah ‘Bally’ Boys defied the odds to rocket into academic overdrive – and is it something it can continue to emulate?
The pivot began in 2009, with new Principal Paul Sheather at the helm as the school led the state in ‘value added’ literacy improvement in NAPLAN testing. The school surged through state rankings and placed first among NSW comprehensive boys’ schools for HSC English in 2011 and 2012, well above a number of selective and top-tier private schools. In 2020, over half of the students achieved 90% or more in their HSC Advanced English exams – no mean feat considering Catholic Schools NSW research showing that boys are twice as likely to be at the bottom in literacy – and even more likely to fall behind once they hit high school.
Faced with a student body that was surviving but not thriving, Mr Sheather swiftly replaced the self-directed ‘discovery’
learning method – in which students lead their own educational journey – with explicit, step-by-step teacher-led instruction. “The explicit delivery approach typically involves breaking down complex concepts into manageable parts, providing structured lessons, and using guided practice to reinforce learning,” Mr Sheather tells PL. These methods have led to ‘far more engaged students’ and ‘academic growth.’ “Once there’s that academic uplift, everything else will come along – and our maths results have gradually improved over the past decade in line with the school’s focus on explicit delivery.
“This teaching style contributes to strong results in subjects like mathematics, due to clarity of instruction – ensuring that students understand the objectives of each lesson, making it easier to grasp concepts. By presenting information in a logical step-by-step sequence, students can build their knowledge progressively, which is crucial in mathematics where concepts often build on one another,” he adds.
Strides in literacy are down to 20-minute grammar, spelling and punctuation classes each day, while writing and reading comprehension is taught in the same highly structured way as maths. Set texts are chosen specifically to appeal to boys – such as William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Shakespeare’s Hamlet – to spark an early love of reading, and students learn to ‘build’ clauses into a sentence using a ‘sentence scaffold’ approach. “This teaching method includes regular assessments and feedback, allowing students to identify areas for improvement and adjust their learning strategies accordingly,” Mr Sheather tells PL. “The approach encourages ample practice opportunities, allowing students to master skills before moving on to more complex topics and according to cognitive load theory, this practice optimises understanding and retention,” he says.
The school has an artist in residence to inspire a creative outlet for students, as seen here producing aerosol art
Buoyed by the stellar results of schools such as Bally Boys – which has tripled enrolment under Mr Sheather’s leadership
– explicit teaching is being encouraged across all NSW public schools by NSW Department of Education Secretary, Murat Dizdar. A group of education experts, known as the Effective and Systematic Teaching Network (EAST), is also working to share best practice amongst schools. “What we know through the cognitive science that supports explicit teaching and how students learn best, is that it is consistent no matter the context, no matter your level of teaching experience and no matter what type of school or student you’re supporting,” says Damien Feneley, principal in residence with the Collaborative Support Unique Settings team and supporter of EAST. “We’re now applying our understanding of human cognitive science to how we teach, and it’s like in elite sport – we’re going to see the same developments,” he adds.
It’s clear that this cohesion is key, with teachers at Bally Boys crediting a ‘homogenous approach’ to sustainable success. “Students are aware of progress through the course, while structured lessons ensure that they are slowly building the complexity of their content area,” says Mr Sheather. “As technique is used across the faculties, it is continually reinforced. Past performances serve to provide affirmation of this mode of learning and instils confidence in both teachers and students that they can achieve at the highest level.
“Teaching is an art form, and one can never achieve perfection – there are always areas of curriculum that need development, new teachers to learn this craft.”
Far from perfection is Australia’s approach towards single sex eductation, says the Kathleen Burrow Research Institute, part of Catholic Schools NSW’s research unit. Its Echoes of Disparity report reveals widening academic outcome gender gaps, with boys, especially between Year 5 to Year 7, struggling to keep up. “Boys are twice as likely to score in the lowest performance bands in the literacy domains and even in numeracy, where boys traditionally outperform girls on average, the lowest performers are equally likely to be boys,” says the report. Recent NAPLAN data shows that one in five Year 9 boys are sitting below the national minimum writing standard. By age 15, boys are twice as likely to be at or below this standard, with the proportion growing to 20.6% of boys in Year 9, up from 3.9% in Year 3.
Yet despite the Australian Men’s Health Forum warning of a ‘stark’ link between poor education and poor health – with men aged between 25 to 54 with no post-school qualifications, found to have a rate of suicide six times higher than university- educated women – there have been no follow-up parliamentary reviews into male education since 2002. Even male teachers are an endangered species, falling from 33% in 2001 to 28.1% last year, a record low, says Kevin McGrath, from Macquarie University’s Department of Educational Studies. Unless changes are made at policy level, they risk extinction by 2067, he says. There are ‘important social and psychological reasons to include more male teachers,’ Mr McGrath adds. And the decline in male representation ‘limits opportunities for students to observe men outside their families who are caring, nurturing, and concerned about education.’
Music is an important part of the school, with talented students performing at the Manly Jazz Festival in 2024
Boys rowing 24 hours for mental health in September, 2024
Principal Paul Sheather is retiring after 16 very successful years
But The Sydney Morning Herald’s annual HSC rankings, which are based on schools that have at least 150 entries and on their success rate of getting band 6 results (marks over 90), show that the gap between boys’ school results and their all-girl rivals could be starting, slowly, to close. In 2023, Bally Boys jumped more than 10 places to nab the top performing comprehensive state school spot, helping public comprehensive boys’ schools to achieve the biggest gains overall, with a median HSC success rate – ratio of top scores to total exams sat – of 13.5%, up from 9.8% five years ago.
Linked to this turn of the tide is resistance to State Government proposals to make Bally Boys and Mackellar Girls campuses co-educational, as part of promises to guarantee co-educational public high school spots for all NSW students by 2027. But despite a large catchment of the lower Northern Beaches only having access to single-sex public schools, the only confirmed change in the shake-up is the expansion of NBSC Freshwater Senior Campus from a seniors-only campus to a full-service high school – itself the subject of much community controversy.
As Paul Sheather steps down after 16 years at the end of term 2, Bally Boys – which is in line for a refurbishment and upgrade following a condition assessment – continues its climb. The school was placed on the NSW public schools high growth HSC 2024 list, a prestigious achievement announced by Deputy Premier and Minister for Education and Early Learning, Prue Car in March. The list highlights schools that have shown the greatest improvement in the top bands last year, as part of ambitious academic, HSC attainment and attendance targets. As the outgoing principal says: “Balgowlah will continue to grind away. After all, our motto is a simple one: By Effort We Achieve.”
HSC rankings (Sydney Morning Herald)
2024 v 2014: 64 v 235
2024 success rate (high scores as a % of entries): 23.8%
NSW median success rate: 5.47%