For more than 30 years, local Christian churches in the area have banded together to hire people with education and theology degrees to work at Balgowlah Boys and its sister school, the Mackellar Girls' Campus of the Northern Beaches Secondary College. They began the program because they struggled to find volunteers for high school classes. That problem persists; non-teachers remain far more willing to take on primary school students than a room full of teenagers. "It's a rightful concern," said Damian Ryan, the chairman of Anchor RE, which funds the teachers. "Many people in church ... think 'it's going to be too hard for me to do this', with concerns about classroom management for 30 boys or girls. "The church thought it may be that we need a different level of professionalism in the high school setting." The organisation - including Baptist, Uniting and Anglican denominations - hires a teacher qualified in both education and theology for both schools, and pays their full-time salary. They use Think Faith, a Bible-based curriculum approved by the Anglican church.

"I think one of the reasons why things have gone so well [is] we do look to have a level of professionalism and engagement of students," said Mr Ryan. "We are really seeking to deliver professional, quality education along with a level of engagement so the students feel they are getting something out of it whether they are coming from a Christian background or not." At Mackellar Girls, participation is lower than at Balgowlah Boys. There, two-thirds of eligible students are enrolled in SRE. Manly High, where Anchor RE has supplied a teacher for one day a week for the past three years, has low participation with just 145 of the 519 eligible students opting in to the program. But Daniel Guenther from Fairness In Religion In School argues participation is high at Balgowlah Boys because parents were led to believe religion was an official subject at the school. In the 2018 school information pack, it was listed alongside all other subjects in the official information booklets and the teachers were included in the staff list, he said.

Loading Mr Guenther also said the class list described it as religious education, not Special Religious Education (which is the specific name for a class that teaches the beliefs of a particular religious persuasion). "Year 7 information packs provided by the school refer to the class ambiguously as 'Religious Education' and list it no differently than the Department of Education (DoE) curriculum courses of mathematics, science and English," he said. "This creates the illusion of legitimacy as part of the DoE curriculum when it most certainly is not." The president of Balgowlah Boys' P&C, Mark Sablating, said he did not know why the school's participation was so high compared with Mackellar Girls' campus. "I believe parents do have the option to opt out, and I wouldn't say the program is actively encouraged," he said. Balgowlah Boys High is one of the most popular schools on the north shore because of its excellent HSC and NAPLAN results.