The schools that are getting more top scores in VCE English

Haileybury College and Yarra Valley Grammar have achieved among the most sustained improvements in high English scores over a decade of VCE performance.

Both schools credit their success to incremental changes built on over time and students receiving firm guidance from teachers.

Other schools that have recorded surging 40+ scores in English include Braybrook College, Loreto Mandeville Hall and John Monash Science School and Emmanuel College in Warrnambool.

In 2025, Haileybury College had about 90 students in the state who received the highest possible score of 50 in English.

The schools’ results are revealed in the Victorian Schools Guide, The Age’s new interactive dashboard that will allow 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.

The Age’s analysis of Haileybury’s English results over 10 years reveals it has had one of the most sustained improvements in study scores of 40 or higher, rising from 56 students in 2016 to 104 last year.

Haileybury College deputy head of English Katrina Alford said the school had drilled into its own data to find areas where improvements could be made.

“We wanted to make sure they were really tangible and achievable for students because we wanted to build on their confidence that they can actually achieve highly. You’ve got to bring them with you,” she said.

The changes were incremental: lectures after school, extra reading, and resources to improve expression.

Reading and writing didn’t come easily to Haileybury student Monty Wright, who felt more at home with numbers and formulas.

“I’ve always thought of myself as a maths or science student and, as a result, I convinced myself that English simply wasn’t for me,” he says.

A disappointing result in year 7 became a source of motivation. “I wanted to prove, more to myself, if anything, that I was capable of succeeding in English.”

For Monty, repetition helped. “Reading and writing, a lot, is the simple answer,” he says. “Many students leave English effort until year 12, which is a common mistake that only compounds the workload.”

Yarra Valley Grammar School is also on a trajectory of consistent improvement in English. Scores of 40 or higher rose from 11 in 2016 to 50 in 2025, the Victorian Schools Guide reveals.

Head of English Dale Hughes says explicit instruction – under which teachers model the skills and standards they want to impart to students – is one reason for success.

When analysing a text, for example, the teacher is at the centre of where the discussion is headed and shows the class the steps to break down an underlying meaning or respond to a prompt.

At least initially, says Hughes, students want firm guidance. “That approach leads to a much stronger essay.”

The approach worked for Shakira Harding, who achieved a study score of 47 in Hughes’ class last year. “He always clearly explained new skills, he modelled them, and showed us how to almost recreate those skills,” she says.

The teacher always provided a follow-up prompt to test students to apply their own thinking.

“It was like he would gradually release responsibility to us. He would start by trying to control the classroom at the start of the year, and by the end it was like he was another student,” Shakira says.

Overall, what worked for her was gaining the confidence to write about the concepts and lessons in the main text, Oedipus the King, that weren’t overtly stated in the Greek tragedy but became clearer after understanding its themes.

“I was sitting on low As in year 10 but never improving,” she says. “That really changed in year 12, when that more conceptual thinking was embedded into us.”

Haileybury College also uses explicit instruction to build the foundation of students’ approach to year 12 English, says Alford.

Teachers show students what it looks like to be curious and discuss the texts with peers.

“We model it for them. They will come into the classroom, and we will say, ‘I’ve just been having a discussion in the English office about this, what do you think?’ We’re showing we are learners too,” Alford says.

The teaching shouldn’t become overly paternalistic, she warns. “I don’t think you want to go too far down the solely explicit teaching approach because I don’t think you want to limit your students. They have to work with you, but you also want to see what they are really capable of producing and the originality of thought.”

Monty Wright found the greatest lesson for him involved having the courage to treat English as a discipline focused on growth, rather than solely about grades.

“I regrettably lost sight of the learning part of English [by] memorising essays word for word, which was effective in the short term, but did little to strengthen my writing,” he says.

“Letting go of that safety net and trusting my ability to write authentically and independently was difficult, but ultimately essential to my success.”

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.