New schools in Melbourne’s west taking their first students this week are already at capacity as the city’s growth suburbs struggle to absorb the surging student population.
In schools across the three local government areas of Wyndham, Hume and Melton, there has been an increase of 26,884 enrolments between 2021 and 2025, with dozens of new campuses built to meet the demand.
Two new Catholic primaries in the City of Melton – St Marianne Cope in the Mount Atkinson Estate in Truganina and St Padre Pio in Thornhill Park – have far exceeded expected intake numbers before the first classes even begin.
“We have a state school opening this year as well, and that’s only a little way down the road,” said St Marianne Cope principal Jackie Byrne. “I worried there wouldn’t be enough families to fill both of our schools. But there are.”
The school has enrolled its capacity of about 250 students for day one, despite initially planning for about 100 fewer students. “We’ve had to get portables in from the get-go, that was not something we anticipated doing,” Byrne said.
An additional prep class has helped squeeze in children from some of the estate’s young families, such as Eva Debono, whose three-year-old sister will also attend the adjoining kinder.
Their mother, Melissa Debono, said the school was opening just in time after she and her husband built in the estate in 2022.
“I was hoping that I would be able to get them into a school that was walking distance. That was promised to us when we bought the land,” she said. “It’s been a lot slower than we thought. I feel a bit sorry for the ones who needed it sooner and the access wasn’t there for them.”
Nearby, the new St Padre Pio school was expecting to open with 130 students this year but will have 195 students and has waiting lists for every year level.
Between 2016 and 2026, students in Catholic primary schools in nine of the fastest growing parishes in the western suburbs increased by 74 per cent – from 9759 students to 16,969 students – according to Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS).
The group expects those numbers to grow by another 37 per cent in the coming decade.
The Wyndham, Hume and Melton council areas account for 47 of the 100 schools the state government has built since 2014. One is Kolorer College in Cobblebank, which will open with about 150 children in year 7 this week, and has capacity of 865 students.
“Our new secondary schools are built for future demand, they start with year 7 students only and add further capacity in stages as enrolments grow. Some primary schools may also add further capacity in stages, if required for demand,” Victorian Education Minister Ben Carroll said.
The government has the option to expand the school into surrounding greenfield sites, depending on demographics, says the school’s principal, Ciar Foster, enabling it to potentially enrol around 1500 students in future. “It’s a really exciting opportunity and unique to be able to establish culture and our ways of teaching from the ground up.”
National Growth Areas Alliance chief executive Bronwen Clark said it was pleasing most new schools were in growth areas but said the delivery often needed to be earlier.
“They could be doing more in terms of their own planning so we don’t have this massive catch-up for people who are already there,” she said.
“It’s not that people move to new areas and expect everything handed to them on a plate. But they have paid developer contributions, they have paid tax, and they’re not given access to the same level of infrastructure and services.”
The biggest growth in enrolments in the past five years is among independent schools, where total enrolments have risen from 154,508 to 178,292 students.
In the past year, more than half of this growth has been in low-fee schools, says Rachel Holthouse, chief executive of Independent Schools Victoria. “Growth is strongest in Melbourne’s outer growth corridors, particularly the west and north, underscoring the critical role low-fee independent schools play in fast-growing communities,” she said.
In Melton, Heathdale Christian College’s primary school is full this year for the first time since opening in 2014.
“I could have filled 600 spaces almost instantly, but we wanted to talk about the importance of the culture that sat with our school and take a measured approach to it,” said executive principal Ross Grace.
The school’s Werribee campus has full enrolments in younger year levels that will soon flow into senior years, too. Grace said school projections showed no signs of enrolments waning in coming decades. “The long-term growth we’ve seen is actually really sustainable.”
Jackson Graham is an education reporter at The Age. He was previously an explainer reporter.Connect via email.
