Haymarket, NSW Family Guide

Catholic schooling from the middle of the city

Haymarket is inside the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, so its systemic Catholic schools are run by Sydney Catholic Schools. There is no zone map for them the way there is for government schools: enrolment is an application, assessed against a published policy, and where you worship and which primary your child attends both count.

The Catholic school inside the CBD itself is St Mary's Cathedral College, attached to the cathedral. It is now co-educational and enrols primary as well as secondary students, according to its own pathway page and the pathway pages of the primaries that feed it. Ask the college which year levels are open to new enrolments before you plan around it.

That picture is the point for a city family: around the cathedral college, the schools on our map are mostly government and independent. A Catholic education from Haymarket usually means a primary in a neighbouring suburb — and that choice sets the next one.

Pick the primary, and you have picked a pathway

Each Sydney Catholic primary is a feeder for a set of secondary colleges, and its students get priority there. Beyond the cathedral college, the two nearest Catholic primary schools to Haymarket on AroundSchools point in different directions:

Glebe opens the inner west and the lower north shore; Waterloo opens the eastern suburbs. The cathedral college sits on both lists. The lists come from each school's pathway page — St James and Our Lady of Mount Carmel — and schools revise them, so read the current page before you decide.

How places are decided

The Sydney Catholic Schools enrolment policy puts baptised Catholic children with a demonstrable link to the local parish first, then siblings of current students, then students coming up through a feeder primary. Special pastoral circumstances and Catholic families from other parishes come next, and families of other faiths are welcome after that. The cathedral college adds one rule that matters in the city: it gives priority to students "from parishes without primary schools".

Timing catches city families out. Kindergarten applications go in during the year before school starts; for Year 7, applications are made while your child is in Year 5. Sydney Catholic Schools asks for submissions before the last week of March, and offers are sent after that (how to apply).

What to do next

• Put your address into the Sydney Catholic Schools school finder to see your parish and the schools it points you to.
• Open St James, Glebe and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Waterloo on AroundSchools to see what sits around each one before you choose a direction.
• Comparing with a government school? Zones are set by address, so check yours with the catchment checker.