Okay, let me set the scene. Imagine the HSC math rankings are like a heavyweight boxing match. In one corner, we’ve got the preening private schools with their ivy covered walls, tuition fees that could bankrupt a small country, and marketing brochures thicker than a calculus textbook. In the other corner, a bunch of regular public and Catholic schools wearing hand me down uniforms and armed with… wait for it… actual good teaching.

Surprise roundhouse kick to the face of educational elitism this year comes via Aquinas Catholic College in Menai. These kids didn’t just sneak past the privileged academies in advanced and extension math performance. They basically turned the leaderboard into confetti. Over three quarters of their students scored above 90 percent in both subjects, which by my rough calculations is roughly a million times more impressive than whatever motivational poster hangs in the headmaster’s office of those six figure fee schools.

Here’s the punchline. Aquinas principal James Clancy looks at elementary school report cards during enrolment interviews and barely glances at grades. He’s hunting for effort scores instead. The actual grind, the messy attempts, the sweat equity. Revolutionary, right? Like a chef caring more about someone’s willingness to chop onions perfectly than their ability to Instagram a soufflé.

Meanwhile, at Carlingford High, they went full Sherlock Holmes on their own teaching methods. Principal David Krust hired an outside consultant (gasp, actual professional development) and overhauled everything from lesson plans to how teachers explain quadratic equations. Cue record numbers of students taking extension math and band six results popping up like enthusiastic gophers. Their secret sauce? Listening to educators, valuing improvement over innate brilliance, and apparently not assuming teenagers learn best while seated on antique mahogany chairs.

Now let’s talk about the elephant in the calculus classroom. Why do we collectively lose our minds when selective schools top these lists? North Sydney Boys and James Ruse are phenomenal institutions, but they’re literally built to cream off the academically gifted. When Aquinas or Carlingford High achieves similar results with open enrolment policies, it’s like watching someone bake a soufflé using a campfire and a tin can while Le Cordon Bleu chefs drop their whiskers in shock.

The hypocrisy here is thicker than a poorly mixed protein shake. Private schools love advertising their academic credentials like they’re peddling luxury handbags. Yet when a Catholic college with probably half their budget or a public school with textbooks held together by duct tape outperforms them in objective measures, suddenly the conversation shifts to well rounded educations or holistic development. Which, sure, matters. But if I paid Maserati prices for a math program, I’d expect my kid to at least know Fermat’s Last Theorem isn’t a lost indie band.

Human impact time. Every parent sweating over school choices just got handed a grenade of doubt. Do those glossy brochures guarantee better outcomes, or are we buying into an educational version of bottled water? Meanwhile, teachers at these overachieving schools are probably cackling into their thermoses. You want improved test scores? Try valuing teacher input more than tennis court maintenance budgets. Novel concept.

The biggest lesson hidden in these rankings isn’t about math at all. It’s about effort versus entitlement. Aquinas gives awards for most improved between assessment tasks. Not just the mathematical Mozarts who aced everything from birth, but the kids who went from knowing pi was 3.14 to actually understanding why it’s irrational. That’s life changing validation, especially when most educational systems treat temporary confusion like it’s contagious.

Science connection, you ask? Every curriculum overhaul these schools implemented was essentially a controlled experiment. Change teaching methods, support struggling students, reward perseverance over perfection. Results? Off the charts. Meanwhile, schools relying solely on selective admissions or financial privilege are clinging to the educational equivalent of alchemy. Newsflash: your golden gates don’t magically impart knowledge.

Watching elite schools get out hustled in their own prestige game is the kind of schadenfreude I live for. But honestly, it’s also kinda beautiful. One mathematician I spoke with compared great teaching to chaos theory. Tiny changes in approach create massive downstream differences in understanding. The Carlingford kids probably just call it not sucking at explanations.

Look, I’m not saying private education is pointless. Some kids thrive there. But let’s stop pretending they’re necessary for academic excellence. When a Catholic college with less flashy facilities and a public school with zero entrance exams can produce math whizzes at this level, it suggests that teaching quality trumps… well, everything else. Your kid would probably learn derivatives faster from an engaged educator in a shipping container than a bored genius lecturer in an amphitheater.

Another revelation? The students themselves. At Aquinas, they hire alumni to tutor current kids after hours. It’s cognitive science meets community building. Teens absorb information better from near peers slightly ahead of them on the journey. Plus, twenty somethings explaining trigonometry probably remember their own HSC panic better than teachers who last sat an exam when pixellated Pong was considered advanced gaming.

Meanwhile, in parents land, this should be earth shattering. Your local comprehensive might be a hidden math powerhouse if leadership treats teachers like professionals instead of inconvenient budget lines. The Catholic system seems particularly pumped, what with their take on effort as holy currency. Who knew St. Thomas Aquinas would have thoughts on calculus curves?

Here’s where my inner cynic surfaces. Will any of this change the status obsessed private school arms race? Doubtful. Mansion dwelling parents aren’t suddenly going to embrace public education because some stats nerds proved value for money. But for everyone else, these results are permission slips. Your kid doesn’t need to attend Hogwarts for Advanced Mathematics. They might just need educators allowed to innovate without drowning in paperwork.

Wrapping this ramble up, the real shining star here is academic humility. Aquinas happily admits effort matters more than precocious talent. Carlingford admits they did a total curriculum do over. They’re celebrating growth, not genetic lottery winners. That kind of culture doesn’t just create great math students. It creates humans who understand learning never stops, whether you’re tackling elliptic curves or assembling IKEA furniture.

So next time someone brags about little Tarquin attending a school with an observatory named after a mining magnate, smile politely. Then ask how many of their math teachers helped rewrite the subject’s curriculum based on actual evidence. Mic drop optional, but highly satisfying.