Setting Australian schools up to succeed, now and for the long term.
We help Australian schools succeed, bringing the financial and analytical rigour major organisations take for granted to every decision that shapes your school's future.
Built inside the sector
Led and advised across Government, Catholic, and Independent education in Australia, and schools internationally.
Proprietary benchmarking
A funding-and-surplus model built from data across more than 2,500 Australian non-government schools.
Strategy and commercial expertise
Analytical rigour applied to school budgets and school communities.
Cross-sector
Government · Catholic · Independent, every state and territory.
The situation
The numbers are harder to manage than they used to be.
How we help
Education insight meets financial discipline.
We bring the financial analysis, benchmarking, and strategic discipline that major organisations take for granted. Applied by people who have worked inside schools and systems. Translated for a school budget and a school community. Our work spans four needs:
Enrolments
We need more of the right students.
Some years the numbers hold, some years they don't, and nobody can say exactly why. Enrolments feel like something that happens to the school rather than something the school drives.
Levers that move it: Enrolments, Revenues, Cost base
See how we work on thisSurplus
We need a surplus that funds the mission.
The budget balances most years, and a bad enrolment year or a cost blowout would tip it. Nobody has stress-tested what "resilient" actually means for this school.
Levers that move it: Revenues, Cost base, Enrolments
See how we work on thisPeople
We need to attract and keep the people we need.
Vacancies sit open longer than they used to, and agency spend is creeping up. It's not clear whether the school is genuinely hard to fill for, or just not being found by the right candidates.
Levers that move it: Org design and workforce, Cost base
See how we work on thisOperations
We need the school we run to match the school we say we are.
Facilities, subjects, and the extra-curricular program all grew for good reasons at the time. Nobody has checked lately whether they still add up to what the school says it is.
Levers that move it: Cost base, Org design and workforce, Revenues
See how we work on thisHow we work
Pursuing the most impactful opportunities.
Every engagement begins with the Review, a single diagnostic that benchmarks your whole operating position. It surfaces the opportunities with the greatest impact, sized and prioritised, so you can act on what matters most.
How we workWho we serve
For schools and the systems behind them.
We work with Independent and Catholic schools, as individual schools or as networks and systems, with findings that connect at both levels.
Individual schools
principals, business managers, and boards navigating growth, sustainability, and workforce pressure.
Networks and systems
dioceses, school groups, and multi-campus operators planning and optimising across many schools.
Why us
Why School Excellence Group
Built inside the sector
led and advised across Government, Catholic, and Independent education in Australia, and schools internationally.
Proprietary benchmarking
a funding-and-surplus model built from data across more than 2,500 Australian non-government schools, plus live national vacancy data.
Strategy and commercial expertise
the discipline of top-tier strategy work, applied to school budgets and school communities.
Cross-sector
Government · Catholic · Independent, every state and territory.
About
Led by two Managing Directors.
Led by two Managing Directors, combining decades of hands-on leadership across Government, Catholic, and Independent education with strategy careers at BCG and McKinsey.
Meet the teamWant to know where your school really stands?
The Review gives you and your leadership team a clear picture of where the numbers point, and the improvement opportunities worth acting on, each one sized.