Packed Port Phillip primary schools say going up will save precious play space

LEADERS at jam-packed St Kilda Primary School fear its precious open space will be overrun by portable classrooms as enrolments continue to surge.

St Kilda Primary school president Ben Pratt with some of the students on their oval they don’t want to lose. Picture: Mark Wilson

LEADERS at jam-packed St Kilda Primary School fear its precious open space will be overrun by portable classrooms as enrolments continue to surge.

They have called on the State Government to stump up about $1.5 million for a vertical school building to house eight extra classrooms.

After Port Phillip Leader’s successful Build Our School campaign in 2014, the State Government committed to building two new schools in South Melbourne to ease congestion at public schools in Melbourne’s inner south. They will open off Albert Rd and on Ferrars St in 2018 and 2019.

But St Kilda Primary school council president Ben Pratt said those new schools would have little impact on the Brighton Rd school, where classrooms were already bursting at the seams.

There isn’t much room to move at Port Melbourne Primary School.

He said the school council had worked with the Education Department in 2014 to secure an enrolment cap and boundary, but it hadn’t been enough to stem the continuing enrolments.

“That (cap) helped to ease the pace of growth but we’ve gone from 352 students in 2010 to nearly 600 this year and we need extra buildings to accommodate them,” Mr Pratt said.

St Kilda Primary is already home to eight ‘relocatable’ classrooms that have “been there for decades”, Mr Pratt said.

He said many students lived in apartments or homes with tiny backyards and the school was keen to “save every blade of grass”.

“The easy answer is to whack a couple of portables on the oval, but we don’t want to lose our open space,” Mr Pratt said.

“Space like this doesn’t exist in any other public school in Port Phillip.”

An existing building, currently used for before and after school care, art classes and PE, could be partly knocked down to allow for a two-storey building that would house an extra eight classrooms within the same footprint, he said.

The project is expected to cost about $1.5 million.

And the problem of overcrowding is the same at other public schools across Melbourne’s inner south, with enrolments going “gangbusters”.

Port Melbourne Primary School principal Peter Martin said more schools would be needed to stave off future over­crowding and a knock-on effect to many primary schools in the inner south once the Fishermans Bend redevelopment was complete.

“With Ferrars St (school), I would be expecting enrolments would start dropping by about 30 or 40 students a year, which would have a significant short-term positive impact on my enrolments,” Mr Martin said.

“However, with the massive developments in the Montague precinct and the rest of Fishermans Bend, unless there are additional educational facilities built in the early 2020s, I will once again see overcrowding being a massive issue at Port Melbourne Primary School.”

Port Melbourne Primary School principal Peter Martin says more schools are needed. Picture: Richard Serong

Mr Martin said he hoped the State Government had extra schools for the area in the pipeline.

Caulfield Primary School principal Peter Gray said enrolments were growing by about 20 per cent each year and the school had to put in its first portable building last year.

“We’re a little behind some of the schools that are really doing it tough but we still have a fairly significant rate of growth,” he said.

“We’re not a huge school but the bottom line is we still don’t have the space to combat (the growth).

“Even at our size, there are flow-on issues such as parking and traffic at school drop-off and pick-up times.”

Mr Gray said the school had grown from about 204 students last year to 250 this year. He said the school would be “loathe to lose” its synthetic soccer pitch and basketball court to portables “down the track”.

Albert Park Primary’s students numbers are pushing 550 this year, up from 513 last year.

Space is at a premium at the 7000sq m school, with students using a pop-up park next to the school to stretch their legs.

Mr Pratt said it was an opportunity for the State Government to “demonstrate that commitment (to be the Education State) rather than slapping us with a pastiche of portables”.

“We have a buildings and grounds fund and we’re doing as much as we can (to raise money) but we need the Department to support us.

Children playing in the crowded St Kilda Primary School's packed playground. Picture: Richard Serong

“We’re never going to raise enough through sausage sizzles.”

He said the school was at “critical decision-making time” as enrolments continued to rise by about two classes each year.

Mr Pratt said about 50 Year 6 students left at the end of each year but prep enrolments had climbed to 120.

Several rooms are being shared by more than one class.

“We have about 18 months before we’re completely full,” Mr Pratt said.

Education Department spokesman Alex Munro said St Kilda Primary’s capital needs would be “considered as part of the usual budget process”.

“The Department has been working with St Kilda Primary School to help it manage its growing student enrolment and will closely monitor its future enrolment growth,” Mr Munro said.

He said an extra 90,000 students would enter the school system over the next five years and the State Government was building 42 new schools, upgrading hundreds of schools and investing in new portable rooms to meet demand.

“The last two budgets have seen the Victorian Government invest $1.8 billion to build, upgrade and maintain schools across the state,” Mr Munro said.

“The Government is building two new primary schools and a new secondary school across the City of Port Phillip to reduce enrolment pressure in the area.”