Overcrowded public schools on the North Shore are nearing capacity and struggling to cope with increasing enrolment pressure.
By Tess Gibney
Early last year vice president of the Northern Sydney Regional Council of Parents and Citizens Associations, Steph Croft, declared public schools on the lower to mid-North Shore to be in “crisis” and experiencing some of the “worst overcrowding and lack of capacity in the state”.
According to the Northern Sydney Regional Council of Parents and Citizens Association, there has been a 23 per cent growth in student numbers in the past six years at 26 of the most affected North Shore public schools.
With an increase of more than 5000 students in just five years, Croft says the previous allotment of one new building a year for the North Shore area was the primary catalyst for the association’s lobbying.
“The main reason we started lobbying was because Northern Sydney – an area which includes 167 public schools – was only being allocated one new building a year, and that was if we were lucky,” Croft says. “To have that enormous growth and only one new building is just not enough.”
Overflowing Chatswood Public School, situated on the lower North Shore, has undertaken an emergency respite development at neighbouring Chatswood High School to alleviate the pressure of overcrowding due to a surge in enrolments.
A long awaited relief for the school, the new Chatswood primary bush campus is set to be open on the first day of Term one, 2014. Built on an unused piece of land at the far side of the Chatswood High School oval, the campus will host 16 demountable class rooms for students in years three and four.
“This is great news for Chatswood Public School,” Croft says. “It just did not have enough room for all the enrolments it was getting this year, and so it has worked really hard to get it underway.”
Last year’s state budget was a welcome announcement for North Shore schools, with Education Minister Adrian Piccoli introducing a $70 million dollar Northern Sydney Schools plan to specifically address the stress of over-enrolment.
The plan includes a new high school at Crows Nest (previously home to Bradfield College), a new primary school for the lower North Shore, a major upgrade of Mowbray Public School and extra classrooms at Chatswood Public School, Artamon Public School, Harbord Public School and Lane Cove West Public School.
Parts of the plan will commence this year, with the goal to have the new high school at Crows Nest completed and ready for students in 2015.
State Liberal member for the seat of Davidson, Jonathan O’Dea, says the government has dedicated substantial money to the development of new school buildings.
“There’s a real commitment to it,” O’Dea says. “In my electorate, Davidson, we have seen major capital works [get] underway.”
At capacity, and in demand due to consistently excellent academic results, Killara High School is set to receive $7,900,000 as part of a multi-million dollar upgrade of the school’s facilities.
Consisting of a new block and school-wide refurbishments, O’Dea says that although it is an outstanding improvement, one building is unlikely to be enough for the barrage of enrolment requests at the popular high school.
“A school like Killara is under high demand, and the number of people in the area is just continuing to grow and grow. The new building alone will not be sufficient to tackle enrolment pressures in the area. The school has amassed a huge amount of demountable classrooms over several years and it needs substantial funding allocation for new capital works,” O’Dea says.
“There are a hundred more students at Killara than it was originally planned for.”
With support from the NSW Premier, O’Dea recently secured the go-ahead for another new building on the site, access to land across the road from the high school that was used for informal parking and the establishment of a new senior high school on the former site of UTS Ku-ring-gai.
“Hopefully these initiatives will help to further relieve ongoing enrolment pressures and issues of overcrowding at schools throughout the lower North Shore,” O’Dea says.
Steph Croft says that despite some fantastic outcomes in the second half of last year, the Parents and Citizens Association is still working closely alongside the Department of Education to ensure “better systems are in place”.
With anecdotal evidence suggesting overcrowding in schools can result in increased playground injuries, Croft and her colleagues are committed to making sure proper planning of demountable class installations is established.
Though schools on the North Shore continue to maintain excellent standards in education, some primary and high schools are jam packed – leaving little room for vigorous activity and necessary playground space.
“Killara High School currently has 23 demountable classrooms on its oval. I’ve seen evidence of more playground injuries,” Croft says. “It is hard because kids do need space to run around, and that’s why it’s really critical that we have good planning for where the demountable classes are going to go.”
As numbers continue to swell, North Shore parents and citizens are crossing their fingers for additional developments in 2014.
In 2013 alone there was an increase of 661 students in the area – what Croft says is “a school in its own right”.
“A standard primary school is around 600 students… so that’s more than one primary school in just one year.”
“We’re delighted that once the government was made aware of the problem, it responded promptly to that problem,” she says. “But we still need more because the growth is just so massive. I’m hoping we get some more good announcements in the next budget.”
