Rooftop soccer field, deluxe offices for NSW Education bosses as kids suffer

While demountable ‘shanty towns’ clutter school playgrounds and confine kids to small scraps of green space, Department of Education employees can kick back with a lunchtime round of soccer in their luxurious Parramatta HQ. See the designs.

A design of the NSW Board of Education premises.

While demountable ‘shanty towns’ clutter public school playgrounds and confine kids to small scraps of green space, Department of Education head office employees can kick back with a lunchtime round of soccer in their luxurious Parramatta HQ.

The main office at 105 Philip Street is a slick, modern building kitted out with a rooftop recreation area where approximately 1800 employees with building access can enjoy an astro-turfed soccer pitch and a barbecue area.

Planning documents spruik the 11-floor project’s green credentials, while design magazines feature glossy photos of spiral staircases, floor-to-ceiling windows and what one publication described as “hotel-like end-of-trip facilities” that include change rooms, showers, lockers and bike racks.

The education department moved into the building in April 2018 under the previous government’s “decade of decentralisation policy” to get out of the Sydney CBD. The office space, built by property developer Dexus, is leased to the government by Charter Hall Group under a 12-year contract which can be extended to 2040.

“105 Phillip St is the main workplace for Department of Education employees that are not school based,” a spokesperson confirmed.

NSW Board of Education offices, 105 Phillip Street, Parramatta.

“The whole building is occupied by NSW Department of Education employees and is not shared.”

The spokesperson said the cost of the lease is commercial-in-confidence, and directed questions concerning the cost of the outdoor rooftop recreation area to the landlord.

Meanwhile, demountable sprawl has taken over hundreds of school ovals, including at Carlingford West Public School which hosts 86 temporary buildings – the highest number in the state.

The soccer pitch on the roof.

School Infrastructure NSW notified families in June that yet another demountable would be installed during the winter holidays, and one of the existing demountables moved to “be used as teaching spaces and a canteen”, while construction continues on a new campus.

An upgrade to the primary school and neighbouring Cumberland High School is now back in the design phase after what start as a two-year project blew out to a six-year timeline under the previous government.

The education department moved into the building in April 2018.

P & C president Adam Lee wrote to then-Premier Dominic Perrottet in September calling out the delays and disruption.

“Most of the children (Year 2 to 6) are now learning in demountables, (and) most of them will be learning in the demountables for the rest of their primary school years,” he said.

“This is not something parents can accept for six years.”

The school had also resorted to staggering recess and lunch breaks, with construction taking up “the majority of play areas”.

“We have received concern from many parents that children no longer have space to run around; playing simple things like handball is like fighting for space and create frictions between them,” Mr Lee’s letter read.

Sharryn Brownlee, president of the Central Coast Council of P & Cs, said now-retired department leaders would be shocked by the rooftop sports pitch.

“They would have thought it was disrespectful to the teachers,” Mrs Brownlee said.

“It’s a nice way for (head office staff) to have a little bit of physical activity … (but) there’s no way that teachers in their lunch break will be able to get out and do that with their peers.

“It’s so inequitable … there are still a number of highly unsatisfactory, very poor condition demountables compared to the luxurious office administration area of Parramatta.”