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Just one day after a family submitted an application to one of Brisbane’s most in-demand state high schools, an enrolment officer began scouring their intimate details to probe the applicant’s in-catchment claims.
This included the name of the child’s primary school – in a different catchment zone – the family’s address listed in the OneSchool database, and even the floor plans of their in-catchment apartment versus an out-of-catchment home to test the veracity of the so-called primary residency.
Following a 14-month fight to receive documents relating to enrolment fraud at Brisbane State High School through Right to Information laws, Brisbane Times can reveal the lengths the school pursues to deny entry to families it believes are not genuinely living in its catchment suburbs of West End, South Brisbane and Highgate Hill.
It reveals the school’s scepticism toward a particular family who moved into an apartment within the catchment zone just months before the school year was due to begin, after living in a family home elsewhere and attending that suburb’s local primary school.
The inner-city school has long struggled to keep a lid on enrolment numbers, and last year had 3588 students enrolled despite a capacity of 3000.
Of those, 2072 lived in-catchment.
The school – the only government institution in the Great Public Schools (GPS) – allocates more than 1000 spots in its competitive academic, sporting and cultural selective entry program.
The heavily redacted RTI shows the family submitted an application for their child on October 25, 2023, for year 7 the following year, giving the address of a unit in the State High area.
However, the family soon admitted they moved into the unit in early November.
Internal notes written by an enrolment officer during a pre-enrolment interview in mid-November noted the family’s statutory declaration affirming their home address was signed on October 19: “A new one will need to be re-done – had not moved in (to the unit).”
“Tenants were living in unit when purchased – they came to an agreement and they moved out,” the officer wrote.
Real estate listings for units and apartments for sale in West End and South Brisbane market themselves as being within the prized State High catchment.
The school’s strict enrolment management plan asks prospective students to provide detailed proof they live in-catchment, including three utilities bills that demonstrate reasonable levels of use.
The family submitted proof they updated their address on driver’s licences on October 19 – 20 days before moving into the unit – home contents insurance, and even a receipt showing they had a fridge delivered.
“Had to put a lot of their furniture in storage because the unit is much smaller,” an enrolment officer’s interview notes state.
“Currently gets driven back to [primary] school every day.”
State school records, via OneSchool, showed the student was enrolled to attend their allegedly former catchment high school in 2024, but that application was withdrawn on October 12, almost two weeks before they applied to State High.
Property searches by the school confirmed the family owned four properties.
The family followed up several times, but on December 8, 2023, the school advised they would not receive an offer as officers were not satisfied their principal place of residence was in-catchment, and they argued it was instead at the long-term family home.
“Owning a property and providing paperwork to that effect, is not the same as evidencing that it is the students (sic) principal place of residence,” the enrolment officer wrote in an email.
Despite the rejection, the family applied to State High again on Sunday, January 21, 2024 – just one day before term 1 was due to begin – and on February 20 said they had been living at the unit for three months.
However, in mid-March, the school again rejected the student’s application, providing details from an investigation that spanned one-and-a-half pages. Details of this investigation were redacted in the RTI.
The family applied again on April 22, 2024, but were told on May 3 executive principal Greg Pierce’s decision remained unchanged.
It is unknown whether the child attended any school for the first few months of 2024.
Brisbane State High has previously employed a private investigator who followed children and their parents to their home and work to weed out enrolment fraud, according to an RTI released in 2022.
Parents at Brisbane State High are concerned about plans to build residential towers, including more than 4000 homes, on the former 7.1 hectare Visy site in South Brisbane, arguing the school was already under significant pressure.
An education department spokeswoman said they could not comment on individual students due to privacy reasons, but said State High’s selective entry places were only available to out-of-catchment enrolments once demand for in-catchment enrolment was met.
She said the school had sufficient capacity for in-catchment and selective entry enrolments in the medium term.
“Larger high schools, such as Brisbane State High School, are able to achieve timetabling efficiencies that allow operation above the student enrolment capacity.”
Under the 2026 State High flexible timetable, students in years 10 to 12 leave school during the second lunch break, from 12.45pm to 1.20pm on Mondays, and have one extra early afternoon “flex time” finish per week.
A project has also begun to convert an “existing space” within the school into a teaching space.
The spokeswoman said the department was actively considering potential future additional primary and secondary growth in the West End and South Brisbane area.
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