Elite Adelaide private school to expand middle school campus

A PRESTIGIOUS Adelaide private school will expand its middle-school campus to accommodate an extra 100 students as it prepares to shift its major intake from Year 8 to Year 7.

Pembroke School will expand its middle school campus.

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PEMBROKE’S middle school campus will expand to accommodate an extra 100 students as it prepares to shift its major intake from Year 8 to Year 7.

The school is looking at preliminary designs for a redevelopment of the old Kensington Centre Special School on Shipsters Rd, which it bought last year for between $3 million and $3.5 million.

Pembroke principal Luke Thompson said final plans would not be released for public consultation until later this year, but said the development would increase the size of the school’s King’s Campus by 30 per cent.

Mr Thompson said extra space at the Shipsters Rd site would be needed as the school shifted its major student intake from Year 8 to Year 7.

“By 2020, Year 7 will be the main point of admission for the school, with only a small number … entering in Year 8,” Mr Thompson said.

“The school plans to gradually increase enrolment of students at Year 7 from 100 to 200 students.

The old Kensington Centre on Shipsters Rd.

“It started this year and will be followed by an incremental increase each year until 2020.”

The move would increase the school’s student numbers to 1680 by 2020, up from 1580 this year.

Mr Thompson said the shift to a Year 7 intake was necessary to bring Pembroke in line with other states and territories, where Year 7 was the first year of secondary school in the public and private sectors.

And he predicted the State Government — which had long been opposed to the shift — would soon follow their interstate counterparts’ lead and move Year 7 to high school.

“The introduction of a national curriculum strengthens our anticipation that SA will at some point in the future move to Year 7 as the first year of secondary school,” he said.

The Liberals promised to shift Year 7 to high school ahead of the 2014 state election, arguing the move would give students earlier access to specialised teaching.

The state’s Catholic education system has committed to the move by 2020.

But the Weatherill Government has argued against the shift, saying it would not improve student learning.

An Education Department spokeswoman this week reaffirmed the State Government’s position.

“There is little quantifiable evidence to suggest that structural reforms, in isolation, make a significant difference to the outcomes of students,” the spokeswoman said.