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February 9, 2026 — 5:00am
A school in Melbourne’s outer east has topped the VCE in food studies, as more Victorian students than ever seek knowledge that can be applied to life skills.
Ringwood Secondary College students scored three of the nine perfect scores of 50 in the subject last year – the most of any school. Meanwhile, 10 of the 44 students who took the subject at Ringwood received a score of 40 or higher.
Principal Rosina Fotia says the recipe behind the “unheard of” results is a passionate teacher, Natalie Murray, who makes the study design seem relevant to students by blending theory and practical skills with a healthy pinch of fun.
“It’s a subject that has been overlooked by many people,” says Fotia. “But if you get teachers with passion, you have to let them go for it.”
The results are revealed in The Age’s Victorian Schools Guide, a new interactive dashboard that allows parents and students to examine the performance of the state’s government, Catholic and independent schools.
The dashboard will be updated regularly and feature new sections in the future, to help guide students and their families in school choices.
Select-entry government school Suzanne Cory High School also performs highly in food studies. A dozen of its students achieved scores above 40. Meanwhile, Surf Coast Secondary College last year achieved its best result in a decade, with seven scores of 40 plus.
Food studies enrolments statewide have steadily risen by 1000 students in the past five years, reaching 4780 in 2025. It’s among the top five fastest-growing VCE subjects, excluding English and general maths, which grow with the overall student population.
Murray says the subject has become popular at Ringwood because of its connection to students’ lives. It sits at a crossroads between disciplines including nutrition and sustainability, and explores the science and art of cooking.
While students cook once a week, they aren’t assessed on it. “That practical element is part of it, but it’s about empowering students to be good food citizens,” says Murray.
Students, for example, grapple with issues that affect our food systems, such as sustainable farming or misleading food labelling.
The subject clicked for Natalie Barr when her two worlds – the classroom and the sporting field – merged into a keen interest in nutrition. Having achieved the score of 50 in the subject, she is now enrolled to study nutrition at university alongside exercise science.
“One of my favourite topics we covered was the digestive system and how food moves through the body and different macronutrients are absorbed,” says Barr, a netball player and long-distance runner. “It’s fascinating to learn about all the work your body has to do every time you eat even something small.”
Sophie Aravindhan, who also received a score of 50, enjoyed making fresh pasta from scratch, and introducing her family to butter chicken and homemade roti after learning a recipe. “I took it as a fun subject in VCE so I wasn’t always stressed.”
Food studies teacher Murray has been a VCE marker for the subject and provides rigorous feedback to the students, who rave about the way she makes the class seem like a team.
Eliza Rankin, a year-11 student who also received the perfect score of 50 and wants to become a teacher, says she found Murray’s approachable style of teaching inspiring.
“The weeks before the exam, I was handing her practice exams every other day, and she would hand them back to me or email me feedback the day of, encouraging me to look into certain areas further and explaining how to respond to [key] terms,” she says.
“Ms Murray definitely has given me insight into what methods work for students, and I would take that on board in my own future career.”
Other VCE subjects experiencing growing enrolments are business management, health and human development, physical education and art creative practice.
RMIT emeritus professor of education Annette Gough, who has researched Victoria’s curriculum since the 1990s, says enrolment trends suggest students are shifting towards subjects they perceive as offering useful life skills.
“Students are voting with their bodies into subjects that they think could be useful for them in terms of survival– how the body works, how to manage budgets and how to cook food,” she says.
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