Drummoyne, NSW Family Guide

Which Catholic school system Drummoyne sits in

Sydney's Catholic schools are not one system. Three dioceses cover the city and each runs its own schools: the Archdiocese of Sydney runs Sydney Catholic Schools, the Diocese of Parramatta runs Catholic Schools Parramatta Diocese, and the Diocese of Broken Bay runs Catholic Schools Broken Bay. A smaller group of Catholic schools is run not by a diocese but by a religious order or a similar Catholic body (Catholic Schools NSW).

Drummoyne's Catholic primary, St Mark's, is a Sydney Catholic Schools school (St Mark's), and so is All Hallows, a short way west in Five Dock (All Hallows). For a Drummoyne family, then, the Catholic route runs through the Archdiocese's system: one application form, one enrolment policy, one calendar.

What belonging to that system changes

• When you apply. Sydney Catholic Schools takes primary applications a year ahead and secondary applications two years ahead, so the Year 7 decision arrives while a child is in Year 5. The form asks for two schools in order of preference, applications are due before the last week of March, and offers go out by early July (SCS enrolment).
• Who is offered a place. When a school has more applicants than places, SCS works through its enrolment categories, which include Catholic affiliation, siblings and feeder-school pathways. Families who are not Catholic, or who do not go to church, can still apply, and a parish priest's reference is optional.
• What it costs. There is no single Catholic fee. SCS sets tuition school by school, according to what each community can contribute, then adds school-based charges and a building levy billed once per family (SCS fees).
• When the holidays are. SCS publishes its own term dates and asks families to confirm them with their school (SCS parent information). They follow the government calendar closely but not always to the day: the Catholic calendar can open a term on a day that public schools keep for staff development (NSW school calendar). The government breaks, for comparison:

Government school dates — individual schools can vary by a few days. · source

From St Mark's to Year 7

St Mark's names four Catholic secondary colleges as its pathway, and none of them is co-educational: two boys' colleges north of the Parramatta River and two girls' colleges nearer home (St Mark's pathways).

• Marist College Eastwood, boys
• Holy Cross College, Ryde, boys
• Domremy College, Five Dock, girls
• Marist Sisters' College, Woolwich, girls

Because feeder-school pathways are one of the enrolment categories, the primary a Drummoyne family chooses carries through to the Year 7 application. A family that wants a co-educational Catholic secondary will be looking beyond this list, and the SCS school finder filters by gender.

Where to go from here

• Open any school above and use its Compare with nearby schools table to set it beside the government options around it.
• The government schools zoned for central Drummoyne are listed further up this page, and the catchment checker confirms the zone for your exact address.
• For after school and weekends, the Drummoyne listings above sit alongside the Five Dock activity page, a suburb or two west.