By Alex Crowe
An entire year level at a sought-after inner-city high school will be moved to an off-site campus with no outdoor area as the school wrestles with burgeoning enrolments and a chronic space shortage.
The Education Department announced this week to University High School parents that it had secured a seven-year lease on a facility in Lonsdale Street in the CBD, two kilometres from the main campus in Parkville, to accommodate year 9 students.
University High School in Parkville will shift its year 9 students to a CBD campus in 2025.Credit: Justin McManus
University High has been operating a temporary campus at North Melbourne Primary School this year to alleviate overcrowding. The new CBD location is slated to open in term one next year.
In a letter to the school community, the Education Department said year 9 students would be attending the CBD campus full-time, and movement between Lonsdale Street and Parkville would be rare.
“This will provide an opportunity to develop an outstanding, standalone city-based educational experience for University High students,” the letter said.
But there is no outdoor space at the CBD building. Students will have recess and lunch at Flagstaff Gardens, about 650 metres away.
A seven-year lease has been signed for a building on Lonsdale Street.Credit: Justin McManus
The letter said refurbishment works to get the building ready would begin once the current tenant – a young adult education facility – vacated the space.
Simon Mitchell-Wong’s son, Nathaniel, 12, will move from Docklands Primary School to University High next year. His sister, 14-year-old Bethany, is now in year 8 at the school.
Nathaniel was among those relocated from his primary when it reached capacity a few years after opening, forcing the Education Department last year to create a second campus at the District Docklands shopping centre.
Mitchell-Wong said he’d been notified on Monday that Bethany would be attending school at the Lonsdale Street building.
Simon Mitchell-Wong and his son Nathaniel outside Docklands Primary School.Credit: Darrian Traynor
“I’ve got one child going to school in a shopping centre and another going to school in an office building next year,” he said.
Mitchell-Wong said it was unclear what facilities would be available to the relocated year 9 students.
“Will there be Bunsen burners in office buildings?” he said. “Is it adequate? Is it safe? Will there be a canteen or will students eat on the streets? Where’s the library?”
Mitchell-Wong said University High had been accommodating to parents, but was hamstrung by the Education Department’s poor planning.
He said families were being encouraged to live in the inner city before essential services were in place.
Mitchell-Wong said overcrowding at the inner-city secondary school would get worse after next year, when the next wave of Docklands primary students reached high school age.
“Docklands has shrunk its catchment, but no alternatives exist in the area for Uni High,” he said.
“Today’s challenges of Docklands Primary School will be tomorrow’s challenges for Uni High.”
Mary Masters, with sons Gideon, 8, and Rupert, 6, is pushing for a secondary school to be developed at the Arden precinct.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Mary Masters is also planning to send her two children from Docklands Primary School to University High.
But the member of a community group that advocates for Melbourne’s north and west is pushing for a new secondary school at Arden, where a planned hospital precinct was scrapped this year.
Masters said a new secondary school with capacity for about 1200 students was desperately needed in the inner city and the “huge empty paddock available in Arden” was an obvious solution.
This will be the third temporary relocation for the University High School in recent years. A number of students were temporarily housed at Carlton Primary School while repairs were carried out after a fire in 2021.
An Education Department spokesperson said the department was exploring longer-term options for new secondary school facilities in the Parkville, Flemington, North Melbourne and Arden areas to help manage enrolment demand.
“There has been an increase in enrolment demand at University High School following considerable
population growth in the area in recent years,” they said.
“We continue to work to ensure there is sufficient capacity to enrol students living within the University High School zone and the siblings of students already attending the school. This includes finding additional capacity for 2025.”
Education Minister Ben Carroll insisted that the School Building Authority was keeping up with increasing demand for places at Melbourne schools.
He said the Education Department was working towards a permanent solution, following the $1.3 million investment to set up the Lonsdale Street campus.
“They’re very grateful for the department’s assistance in having that new measure set up,” Carroll said.
More than 1850 students enrolled at the year 7 to 12 school in 2023, up from 1127 in 2018.
University High School principal Ciar Foster said the year 9 curriculum was being redeveloped to take advantage of the new CBD location.
“I look forward to sharing further information about this new campus, including upcoming refurbishment works, facilities, curriculum program and access for students and staff,” she said in a letter to the school community.
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correction
An earlier version of this article said University High School was a select-entry year 9 to 12 school. It’s a zoned year 7 to 12 school.