Class act: Bondi Public students move into new classrooms after long campaign to move bureaucrats out

BONDI Public School student Lucia Flanagan could not hide her excitement when Vaucluse state Liberal MP Gabrielle Upton handed her the keys to four new classrooms.

Year two student Lucia Flanagan gets the keys to the new classrooms. Pictured with Vaucluse MP Gabrielle Upton, Coogee MP Bruce Notley-Smith and fellow students Tillo Mcinerney, Ines Dunbar, Callum Knight and Oscar Tuckwell. Pictures: John Appleyard

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BONDI Public School student Lucia Flanagan could not hide her excitement when Vaucluse state Liberal MP Gabrielle Upton handed her the keys to four new classrooms.

The students move into the classrooms on the first day of term two today after a vigorous campaign by the Wentworth Courier and the school’s P & C to have Department of Education bureaucrats vacate the top level of the building.

Student numbers have surged 670 per cent in the past decade — from 77 in 2007 to 592 this year — and figures released last year revealed the school was at 140 per cent capacity.

The classrooms are on the top level of this prime school building, which has views out to Bondi Beach.

Ms Upton and Coogee Liberal MP Bruce Notley-Smith pushed for the staff, who were using the building as a regional office, to be moved out to make way for the desperately space.

Year 2 student Lucia said she was “excited” to move into the new classrooms.

“It’s really spacious and there’s lots of places to put things and I think I’ll really like being up there,” she said.

The classrooms were ready for the students on their first day of term two. Pic: John Appleyard.

”They are so big and sunny and all my friends will be in the same building now ... and we can even see our kitchen garden from the window.”

P & C vice-president Rachel Blackley thanked Ms Upton, Mr Notley-Smith and the Courier for “achieving such a positive outcome”.

Ms Upton said: “This is a fantastic win for the Bondi Public School community and I am proud to have played my part in making it happen.

“Schools should be for students and teachers, not bureaucrats.”