From their surgeries, laboratories and executive suites, former students of James Ruse Agricultural High say some of their fondest memories of the school known as the genius factory involve its farm.

“We had to manage our own plots, we fertilised them, we harvested them and took fruit and vegetables home,” says class of 2001 graduate David Fung, who is now an internationally renowned concert pianist.

“It was almost like a stress release,” says Kavita Enjeti, a Sydney-based dermatologist from the Class of 1998. “I remember digging, harvesting the potatoes, having sheep around. Maybe it was the connection with nature.”

James Ruse was established to focus on farming. Behind the ageing weatherboard classrooms and the heritage homestead that serves as the office in the back streets of Carlingford, there are cows, chickens and vegetable patches.

It was established as a boys’ selective school in 1959, and girls were accepted in the late 1970s. Within 20 years, it had become one of Sydney’s highest-performing schools, and in 1996 it took the mantle of the state’s top school off Sydney Grammar.

It has held it ever since. It’s an extraordinary achievement for any school, let alone a public high school with far fewer resources than many of the private schools that dominate the Higher School Certificate honour rolls.