Best Girls Schools in Adelaide | 2025 Rankings & Insights
South Australia’s private girls schools are known for strong academic traditions, well-developed pastoral care and broad opportunities across arts, sport and leadership. Schools360’s 2025 Girls Schools Rankings provide an independent, data-driven assessment of how these schools perform across academic outcomes, student wellbeing, learning environment quality, program depth and long-term institutional capability.
Use the table below to explore the leaders in Melbourne’s private boys education for 2025.
Updated December 2025 · Independent analysis by Schools360
2025 Rankings | Adelaide’s Private Girls Schools
This table shows the full list of private girls schools in South Australia for 2025.
Top 10 Girls Schools in Adelaide (2025)
Image credit: Walford Anglican School, for Girls, Hyde Park
1. Wilderness School
Location: Medindie
Type: Independent girls school
Strengths: The highest-performing girls school in South Australia with an 88.2 percent score. Strong academic outcomes, excellent wellbeing systems and broad program depth across arts, sport and leadership. A consistently high-performing school with strong institutional capability.
2. St Peter’s Girls’ School
Location: Stonyfell
Type: Independent Anglican girls school
Strengths: Scores 86.7 percent with strong academic foundations, high-quality learning environments and extensive co-curricular opportunities. Known for balanced development and strong senior pathways.
3. Walford Anglican School for Girls
Location: Hyde Park
Type: Independent Anglican girls school
Strengths: An 85.2 percent score driven by solid academic performance, strong wellbeing culture and a supportive learning environment. Offers breadth across creative arts, sport and leadership.
4. Seymour College
Location: Glen Osmond
Type: Independent non-denominational girls school
Strengths: Scores 82.2 percent with balanced strengths across academics, wellbeing and learning environment. Well-regarded for student engagement and leadership development.
5. Loreto College Marryatville
Location: Marryatville
Type: Independent Catholic girls school
Strengths: A 79.7 percent score supported by strong pastoral systems, stable academic outcomes and a values-based learning culture.
6. St Mary’s College
Location: Adelaide
Type: Independent Catholic girls school
Strengths: Scores 75.2 percent with strong wellbeing performance, supportive culture and consistent teaching quality.
7. St Dominic’s Priory College
Location: North Adelaide
Type: Independent Catholic girls school
Strengths: A 71.9 percent score reflecting stable academic outcomes, strong pastoral care and a positive school environment.
8. St Aloysius College
Location: Adelaide
Type: Independent Catholic girls school
Strengths: Scores 71.0 percent with a focus on wellbeing, community engagement and values-driven education.
9. Kildare College
Location: Holden Hill
Type: Independent Catholic girls school
Strengths: A 69.7 percent score supported by a strong pastoral framework and a supportive learning environment.
10. Mary MacKillop College
Location: Kensington
Type: Independent Catholic girls school
Strengths: Scores 66.8 percent with consistent wellbeing systems and a positive school culture.
Key Insights
South Australia’s private girls schools show a clear performance hierarchy, with Wilderness School, St Peter’s Girls’ School and Walford forming a strong top tier. These schools combine academic strength with mature wellbeing systems and broad co-curricular programs.
Academic performance is strongest among the top four schools, with scores above 82 percent. These schools demonstrate strong senior pathways, engaged learning environments and high expectations.
Learning Environment performance is solid across the leading schools, supported by strong teaching quality and stable classroom conditions. Variability increases further down the rankings as resource depth and program breadth differ.
Program breadth is a key differentiator at the top. Schools such as Wilderness, St Peter’s Girls’ and Walford offer extensive opportunities across arts, sport, STEM and leadership, contributing to well-rounded student outcomes.
Student Wellbeing is consistently strong across the category, particularly among the top schools where pastoral care systems, culture and student support structures are well developed.
Institutional Excellence is strongest among long-established schools with experienced leadership teams and stable governance, contributing to sustained performance over time.
Overall, South Australia’s leading girls schools demonstrate a combination of academic strength, supportive wellbeing culture and program depth, with clear separation between the top tier and the remainder of the category.
Snapshot for 2025
Performance concentration at the top is pronounced. Only three schools score above 85 percent, creating a clearly separated top tier rather than a smooth performance curve across the category.
A meaningful performance gap emerges after the top four. Scores fall away quickly below Seymour College, indicating fewer schools combining strong academics, wellbeing and program depth at scale.
Anglican and independent schools dominate the upper tier, while Catholic girls schools form a larger mid-to-lower band with more varied academic and learning environment outcomes.
Program scale appears to matter. Schools with broader senior cohorts and deeper co-curricular infrastructure consistently rank higher than smaller or more constrained campuses.
Wellbeing acts as a stabiliser rather than a differentiator across the category, with most schools showing solid pastoral systems even where academic outcomes diverge.
Geographic concentration remains tight, with the strongest performers located in Adelaide’s inner and eastern suburbs, reinforcing the link between location, resources and program breadth.
Frequently Asked Questions
These questions help explain how Schools360 evaluates and updates private school rankings across Australia.
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Schools360 uses a 60-Element Scoring Framework that assesses academic results, learning environment, student wellbeing, culture, co-curricular depth and institutional excellence. The framework focuses on balanced, holistic school performance rather than a single academic metric.
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Rankings are based on publicly available data, school-reported information and independent Schools360 research. Each school’s profile reflects the most reliable and current data available at the time of the annual update.
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Rankings are updated annually, with the current page reflecting the latest 2025 update. Additional refinements may be made when schools provide new information or when verified updates become available.
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Yes. Each school’s profile includes an option for corrections or feedback. Schools360 reviews all submissions and updates school profiles when verified changes are received.
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