Ask a Bayside parent which local private school gets the best results and you’ll usually get a confident answer, a slightly less confident follow-up, and a story about a neighbour’s nephew who got into medicine. I’ve heard a few of these at barbecues, nodding along like I had a stake in it. I don’t. My only dependants are two cats, and neither of them is sitting an exam this year.
Still, anyone who has tried to get down South Road at 3.30 on a weekday knows school choice is a big deal around here. With the Class of 2026 now about a month out from exams, I thought I’d put the barbecue anecdotes aside and see what three years of published VCE data actually says about the private schools along the bay, from Brighton down to Mentone.
How Bayside Private Schools Are Compared on VCE Results
I’ve used the measure most league tables lean on, which is the share of a school’s VCE study scores that came in at 40 or more out of 50. A 40 puts a student in roughly the top 9% of the state for that subject, so the higher the percentage, the more of a school’s results were top shelf. The figures are VCAA data as compiled by TopScores.
Two caveats before we start. Schools with smaller Year 12 classes can move a long way in a single year, so one result is never the whole story. And at least one school doesn’t report its results the way you’d expect, which I’ll get to.
Bayside Private School VCE Results, 2023 to 2025
Each figure is the share of that school’s VCE study scores that were 40 or above in that year. Schools are listed in order of their 2025 result, and a dash means I couldn’t find a figure. Star of the Sea’s 2025 number comes from KIS Academics.
| School | Suburb | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Haileybury (girls) | Brighton, Keysborough and other campuses | 28.6% | 29.9% | 31.2% | Up |
| Haileybury (boys) | Brighton, Keysborough and other campuses | 26.3% | 26.3% | 26.5% | Steady |
| Firbank Grammar | Brighton | 18.9% | 19.2% | 23.0% | Up |
| Mentone Grammar | Mentone | 21.1% | 21.5% | 21.6% | Steady |
| Mentone Girls’ Grammar | Mentone | 29.4% | 22.2% | 20.6% | Down |
| Brighton Grammar | Brighton | 24.5% | 24.3% | 18.6% | Down |
| Star of the Sea College | Brighton | – | 18.8% | 13.7% | Down |
How Haileybury Reports Its VCE Results
Haileybury is the odd one out in that table, and it confused me at first too. The school runs several Melbourne campuses, and the VCAA reports its results under the Keysborough address rather than campus by campus. It also splits them in two, because boys and girls are taught in separate classes from Year 5. So the two Haileybury rows cover the whole school, Brighton senior students included, rather than the Brighton campus on its own.
With that out of the way, the girls’ figures are the strongest in the table and have gone up every year, from 28.6% to 31.2%. That was enough for fifth in the state on Better Education’s rankings in 2025. The boys have been almost boringly consistent at around 26%, which I mean as a compliment. Either group would have sat at or near the top of the Bayside table in any of the last three years, and they’re doing it with VCE cohorts of around 420 girls and 580 boys. That’s bigger than any other school here, and I think it’s the bit people tend to overlook. Keeping a big group at that level is a lot harder than doing it with a class of 130.
Haileybury Brighton
For local families, the relevant campus is on South Road, Brighton East VIC, about a kilometre and a half from Brighton Beach. It’s where the school started back in 1892, and Haileybury’s private school in Brighton now runs from ELC through to Year 12. The main intake years are three-year-old kinder, Prep, Year 5, Year 7 and Year 10, and Haileybury says every year level is waitlisted, so I’d get in early. For anyone weighing up a move closer to the city, Haileybury also has a campus on King Street in the CBD.
Firbank Grammar
Firbank Grammar had the best story of 2025 among the Brighton schools, jumping from 19.2% to 23.0%. It’s the most improved school in the table over the three years, and if I had to pick one to keep climbing, it’d be this one.
Mentone Grammar and Mentone Girls’ Grammar
Down the road, Mentone Grammar is the picture of consistency, sitting between 21% and 22% three years running. Its neighbour Mentone Girls’ Grammar is the opposite. In 2023 its 29.4% was the best result in Bayside, but with a Year 12 group of around 130 it has since come back to 20.6%. I doubt that says much about the school itself. It’s exactly the kind of swing small cohorts produce.
Brighton Grammar and Star of the Sea College
Brighton Grammar will be hoping 2025 was an off year. After two years around 24%, it fell to 18.6%. Star of the Sea College also dropped, though it reported a median ATAR of 82.7 for 2025, which is nothing to sneeze at.
St Leonard’s College
St Leonard’s College in Brighton East is missing from the table. It offers the International Baccalaureate alongside VCE, so its VCE numbers only cover part of the year group, and I couldn’t find comparable figures for 2024 and 2025. If you’ve got them, let me know and I’ll add them in. For what it’s worth, the school reported a VCE median ATAR of 81 for 2025, and in 2023, the last year I could compare properly, 20.7% of its study scores were 40 or above.
Which Bayside School Will Top VCE in 2026?
Nobody knows until December, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably selling tutoring. But I’ve come this far, so here’s my guess.
I think Haileybury’s girls start as clear favourites. They’ve led Bayside two years running, improved every year, and have a cohort big enough that one unusual year group is unlikely to knock them off. The boys are the safest bet in the table to land within a point of last year.
The more interesting race is for second. Firbank has the momentum, Mentone Grammar has the consistency, and Brighton Grammar has every reason to bounce back after a rough 2025. If you forced me to pick, I’d lean towards Firbank, though I’ve been wrong about these things before.
Are VCE Results the Best Way to Choose a School?
Probably not on their own. VCE percentages measure who walks in the gate as much as what happens once they’re inside, and a single number can’t tell you about a school’s teaching, its sport, its music or whether your kid will actually be happy there. I’d use the table as a starting point, then go and walk the campuses, ideally not at 3.30 on a weekday.
I’ll update this once the 2026 results come out in December. In the meantime, if you’ve got a kid at one of these schools and think I’ve got it wrong, I’d like to hear why.
