North Sydney Girls High School

Enrolments

North Sydney Girls is an academically selective high school; admission to the school for Year 7 is determined by results in the Selective High Schools test, which is open to all Year 6 students in NSW. A small number of students from other high schools are accepted into years 8 to 12, with applications made to the school to sit for an entrance exam.

Award system

At North Sydney Girls High School, awards are given based on academic performance, sport performance, service to school and other merits across all years.^{[citation needed]}

Academic results

In 2001, The Sun-Herald ranked North Sydney Girls High School first in Australia's top ten girls' schools, based on the number of its alumnae mentioned in the Who's Who in Australia.^[4] In 2022, North Sydney Girls High School ranked as the fourth high school in the state, based on the percentage of exams sat that achieved a Distinguished Achievers (DA).^[5]

Generally, around 20-30% of students earn ATAR ranks between 99-99.95.^[6]

Music and drama

NSGHS has a theatresports troupe, junior drama ensemble, Year 10 drama night, and various clubs available to seniors.

Instrumental ensembles and bands include the advanced string ensemble, stage (jazz) band, jazz ensemble, concert band, symphony orchestra, wind orchestra, wind ensemble, and beginner band. Choirs and vocal ensembles include Year 7 choir, junior choir, intermediate choir, combined (NSGHS & NSBHS) choir, senior vocal, and the a capella group.

Sport and outdoor activity

Co-curricular sports include basketball, skiing, hockey, cricket, badminton, table tennis, taekwondo, rowing, kayaking, touch football, water polo, fencing, netball, tennis, and volleyball. NSGHS also has a chess club, dance ensembles, and a cadet program at Marist Catholic College North Shore, and has had students participate in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme.

Academic

• Dame Valerie Beral – breast cancer epidemiologist
• Anna Katherine Donald – Rhodes Scholar (1989)^[7]
• Dame Janet Ritterman – former director of the Royal College of Music in London, from 1993 to 2005.

Entertainment, media and the arts

• Benita Collings – Play School presenter^{[citation needed]}
• Ruth Cracknell – actress
• Ceridwen Dovey – author
• Jill Hellyer – author and poet
• Elsa Jacoby – actress and soprano
• Nathalie Kelley – actress
• Nicole Kidman – actress^[8]
• Samantha Lang – film and theatre director^[9]
• Catherine Martin – production designer
• Lucy Maunder – cabaret and theatre performer
• Janet Patterson – costume designer and production designer
• Cassandra Pybus – historian and author
• Margaret Throsby – ABC Classic FM presenter^{[citation needed]}
• Naomi Watts – actress
• Wengie – YouTube personality, singer, voice actress
• Nina Oyama – comedian, writer, actor, and director
• Nagi Maehashi – cook, writer and businesswoman

Politics, public service and the law

• Sally Dowling – NSW Director of Public Prosecutions^[10]
• Shelley Hancock – teacher and parliamentarian; elected as a member of the NSW Legislative Assembly for South Coast (Liberal Party)^[11]
• Justice Lucy McCallum – Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory^[12]
• Nancy Grace Augusta Wake resistance fighter known to the Germans as "the White Mouse"; the most decorated woman of World War Two^[13]

Sport

• Elise Simone Ashton (née Norwood) – Olympic water polo player^[14]