Principal John Farrell refuses to let adversity be an excuse for failure.
The 127 students at his school, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, come almost entirely from Redfern's ageing housing commission flats, 70 per cent are indigenous and about 60 per cent have a family member in prison.
As a result of his transformative leadership, the school now boasts impressive attendance and its NAPLAN results outshine those of schools with statistically similar students.
The Catholic primary school is one of six schools highlighted in a new book by Maxine McKew as proof that remarkable progress can be made in the most difficult circumstances.
Class Act, to be released next month, is a result of the work the journalist and former Labour MP has done over the past two years as a fellow at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education.
Having spent time in each of the featured schools, McKew noticed two common elements to their success.
"They have a high level of pastoral care and very good community and parental engagement," she said. "But they also put a huge emphasis on expert, high-impact teaching."
The challenge, if Australia is to lift its dismal international education rankings, is to replicate that improvement across "what is now a very fragmented and segregated system".
To do this, she said, David Gonski's needs-based funding model was absolutely crucial and it would be "an act of monumental national stupidity" to ignore his findings.
"We can spend a further decade on yet another episode of the education wars, or we can get cracking and address this underperformance," she writes.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel is cited as a perfect example of why more money needs to be directed towards our most disadvantaged students.
The key to boosting the school's academic results has been targeting the limited language development of its students. Most start kindergarten with almost no grasp of standard Australian English and with extremely limited vocabularies.
The school employed the services of speech and occupational therapists to work with the younger students twice a week. But without reliable revenue, the ongoing viability of the program remains precarious.
Mr Farrell said the professional support was "crucial" if his students are going to have the opportunities afforded to the country's more affluent students.
"It's frustrating when you see the success of that intervention and yet there's no certainty we'll be able to keep those programs going," he said.
In addition to needs-based funding, McKew has identified some key areas of the education system that need to be addressed if Australia is to lift its deteriorating academic performance.
She is calling for greater investment in the training and capabilities of teachers and school leaders, teaching material that is intellectually demanding, lifting expectations and encouraging partnerships between public schools and philanthropists.
And, crucially, there needs to be "a settled, cross-party agreement on what constitutes an equitable, quality education system".
While McKew remains "moderately optimistic" about the implementation of Gonski, she sensed a shifting sentiment following this year's federal budget.
"Australians are saying loud and clear that they are not interested in a government that duck-shoves on education," she said.
For Mr Farrell, his greatest ambition is that his fresh-faced students will reach for "the world beyond Waterloo".
"Almost universally, when we talk to parents and kids about what they like about this school, they say that it's a safe place," he said. "Once you know you have that foundation of safety, you set high expectations for learning."
