Tara Anglican School for Girls (commonly referred to as Tara) is an independent Anglican single-sex early learning, primary, and secondary day and boarding school for girls, located in North Parramatta, a western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Established in 1897, Tara has a non-selective enrollment policy and currently caters for approximately 800 students from early learning, through Year K to Year 12, including 60 boarders from Year 5 to Year 12. The school is affiliated with the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA), the Association of Heads of Independent Girls' Schools (IGSSA), the Independent Primary School Heads of Australia (IPSHA), the Australian Boarding Schools' Association, the Alliance of Girls' Schools Australasia, and is a member of the Association of Heads of Independent Girls' Schools (AHIGS). Tara's 2010 HSC results ranked the school the number one non-selective school in Sydney's west. In the 2007 NSW Higher School Certificate, the Sydney Morning Herald named Tara the best performing independent school in Sydney’s north-west. History The school traces its origins back to 1897, where it is thought to have started with the opening of St Ronan's School, a Christian, co-educational, primary day school in George Street, Parramatta, by Mary Elizabeth "Joan" Waugh. In 1898, Waugh moved St Ronan's to an already existing school, The Cedars, in Western Road, Parramatta, in partnership with its incumbent principal, a Mrs Bond. From here, in keeping with Waugh's Anglican vision, the partnership with Bond was dissolved and the school moved to St John's Parish Hall, Parramatta, in 1902. When Waugh's father, Isaac Waugh, died in 1912, the school moved to the family home, "Tara", in George Street, Parramatta (demolished in 1963). The name of this property had been chosen years earlier by the Waugh family who, being of Irish background, named it after the Hill of Tara, in Ireland. When Joan Waugh's mother died in 1926, the Tara home was sold, and Tara opened in larger premises at Hassall Street, Parramatta. This was to be Tara's home for the next twenty years and the final move for Joan Waugh. When she died in 1946, the school came under the protection of the Church of England in Australia. All Saints' Church Hall was to be Tara's next home. It is here that it is said that without the help of Paddy Walker, and the active participation of a group of parents, the school