Orange High School's deputy principal Alison McLennan was a finalist in the Teacher of the Year (Secondary) category, and the school was a finalist in the Secondary School of the Year (Government) category.

Mr Bliss was one of four principals who received an Excellence Award in the Principal of the Year category - two from NSW and two from Western Australia.

"It's very humbling," said Mr Bliss of the school's achievements.

"And it's a fantastic recognition of what our school has done over a number of years ... and of public education."

Mr Bliss said he has a number of yardsticks for assessing whether the school is meeting its goals.

"We try and place a holistic focus on the whole of the school.

"We look at our internal data, our well-being data, our attendance, academic results both internal and external - we look at Naplan, Best Start, the HSC, and we couple that with the physical, social and emotional health of our kids and our staff.

"It gives us a good baseline to judge whether or not we've been successful."

He praised teachers and staff at the school for the way they had handled the disruption wrought by the COVID pandemic.

"I couldn't be more proud of our school community," he said.

"We worked really, really hard during that initial COVID outbreak and when schools moved to remote learning my team set up more than 400 Google classrooms in less than four days to ensure that our students didn't miss out at all on their learning.

"We've looked after [students] in terms of their emotional health and well-being.

"The whole school - and the staff in particular - have just been the most phenomenally professional and dedicated group of individuals I've ever had the pleasure of working with."

He also lauded the resilience of the student body.

"They have worked exceptionally hard to ensure they've continued to learn."

Such is Orange High School's popularity, real estate agents are increasingly using it as a selling point for properties within the school's catchment zone.

The Australian Educator Awards are run by The Educator Magazine.

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