Border schools have been recognised on a national stage at the annual Australian Education Awards.
The awards involve a six-stage process where schools are nominated, and if recognised with an excellence award, go on to a judging panel.
Decisions of those independent judges were made public on Friday night at a virtual awards ceremony.
The Scots School Albury won best co-curricular program and James Fallon High School won regional school of the year, over seven others.
Both schools had made it through to the final round with excellence awards, and Bandiana Primary School was also recognised with excellence awards in two categories.
Scots School Albury principal Mark Geraets was able to share the good news with teachers and students at a handover of tennis rackets for their youngest students involved in the co-curricular program.
"Winning that award was a huge celebration," he said.
"It's about that holistic education and finding the spark of genius in every child, whether that's academics, or in the co-curricular field.
"We've got four main streams in our co-curricular program; we have the sports, our performing arts ... we have a service component, and we have out STEM."
Mr Geraets said the STEM program was constantly growing.
"STEM has astronomy and robotics, which we really introduced this year and has just taken off," he said.
"We ran holiday programs through both of the last breaks ... and that has just been so incredibly popular.
"We have a partnership with Abu Dhabi for girls in STEM ... and that's also been very successful.
"So we're building upon that and our service learning, while performing arts and sports have always been strong with our music camps, our basketball camps and our soccer camps."
Tennis coach Brock Dixon said basketball was probably the most popular sport amongst students but he was working on getting tennis into the top spot.
"Tennis is a really good sport to learn early because there are so many skills involved," he said.
"Every week, every Kinder and year one student comes out with the co-curricular program and gets a tennis lesson with myself.
"Grades two, three, four and all the way up to year 12 also have tennis lessons through lunchtimes and before and after school."
IN OTHER NEWS:
Mr Dixon hoped the students would be encouraged to work on their skills over the holidays with their new tennis rackets, provided with support of Intersport and TennisEleven.
"It's a really exciting initiative and it's exciting for kids to be able to have their very first tennis racket," he said.
