Brunswick, VIC Family Guide

Catholic schools from Brunswick: primaries nearby, colleges further out

Around Brunswick, the Catholic options come in two layers, and they work differently.

The primaries are close. The nearest Catholic primaries on AroundSchools are St Margaret Mary's Primary School in Brunswick North, Our Lady Help of Christians School in Brunswick East and St Joseph's School in Brunswick West. All three are within 2 km of central Brunswick. St Bernard's Primary School in East Coburg is just beyond them.

The colleges are further out, and most are girls' schools. AroundSchools lists several Catholic secondary colleges within 5 km. Santa Maria College in Northcote, St Aloysius College in North Melbourne, Academy of Mary Immaculate in Fitzroy, Mercy College in Coburg North and St Columba's College in Essendon are all girls' schools. For a son, the options on that list are Simonds Catholic College in West Melbourne, a boys' school, and Antonine College in Coburg, which is coeducational. If you have a son and a daughter, you may be planning for two schools.

The timing is early. For Year 7 at a Catholic secondary college, Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools advises contacting the school when your child is in Year 5, and some colleges take applications earlier (MACS). Some Catholic colleges are run through the MACS office and others belong to a religious order. Read each college's own enrolment policy rather than assuming one set of rules, and put its open day in the calendar well before Year 5.

Where Catholic schools sit in the local mix

This is how the schools within 3 km of Brunswick split by sector, from the AroundSchools directory:

Government schools here use zones. The zones covering Brunswick are listed higher up this page, and the catchment checker confirms them for a street address. Catholic schools are not part of that zoning system, so an address inside a government zone does not decide a Catholic place.

If a school is why you're looking at Brunswick

This is what homes have actually sold for in Brunswick and the suburbs beside it. The figures are settled-sale medians from the Valuer-General, house against unit. The last column shows how many times the unit median the house median is.

Median settled sale prices to 2025-Q4 · Source: Victorian Property Sales Report © State of Victoria (Department of Transport and Planning), CC BY 4.0 · source

Next steps

• Open each school's page above to see its sector, any fees it publishes, and the other schools around it.
• Book college tours and information sessions early. MACS lists them among the steps in choosing a college.
• Before you decide, check the government zones for the exact address you're considering in the catchment checker, so you know both routes.