Westminster School opens $16m music, arts ‘Forder Centre’ as part of its $40m upgrade
The next part of Westminster School’s huge upgrade is open – a $16m music and performing arts centre that features a library and a cafe.
Education
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Westminster School will help foster some of the future’s performing artists and music specialists, with a new $16m centre opening to students this week.
The Forder Centre is among the key features of a wider $40m plan to upgrade the Marion school’s offerings.
It features music recording rooms, various performance areas and a library and cafe.
The Forder Centre, named after the school’s first headmaster, Douglas Highmoor Forder, is the centrepiece of stage 2 of the upgrade, following the opening of the Inquiry and Innovation Hub in the project’s $20m initial phase.
That has a focus on science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics subjects.
Now the Forder Centre is complete, the school is also working a $4m central green in the middle of the campus – a landscaped parkland with an amphitheatre for outdoor events and lunchtime socialising.
Principal Simon Shepherd said the Forder Centre was designed to welcome the whole school community, including a meeting place for clubs and parents.
It would also be open to students after hours, allowing them to eat dinner in the 250-seat dining room, and begin their homework.
“It will provide the capacity for a flexible day and for our borders and day students to come together,” Mr Shepherd said.
“When I went to school, it was the day boys versus the borders. But we want to be one group of people.”
It’s hoped the centre, built at the same time as a new Year 12 area, will help the school offer students a greater sense of belonging within the campus.
“There’s a decrease in the number of kids in regional SA, and one of the reasons kids do come to Adelaide is for education,” Mr Shepherd said.
“If they’re tucked away by themselves, they can be marginalised.
“They’re also here to make friends and build networks and we want to try to expand that as well.”
The centre overlooks the ELC – Year 12 school’s main oval and also includes information technology support, teaching spaces and quiet study areas.
Westminster students returned to school on Tuesday, but seniors including Estella, Immi, Jack and Archer, all 17, got a sneak preview of the campus’s new year 12 area on Monday.
Archer, who studies music and specialises in playing the piano, said the new facilities were “incredible”.
“The most amazing thing about it is … that if I was to go to university and study music, it’s the kind of facilities I’d find there as well,” he said.
“This is the kind of technology that people in the industry use in the real world.”
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