Top private schools face pressure to open grounds to public students

A cluster of top Sydney private schools are facing pressure to open their grounds to public students in a bid to boost access to sports facilities and open space in high-density suburbs.

North Sydney Mayor Zoe Baker plans to ask principals at Shore School, Loreto Kirribilli, Wenona, St Aloysius’ College and Redlands to consider sharing their facilities with locals.

Redevelopment plans for Loreto Kirribilli.Credit: Loreto Kirribilli

The idea is backed by Cities Minister Rob Stokes, who in 2018 floated a similar proposal that private schools allow public students access to their multimillion-dollar sports and performing arts centres.

“The community makes a significant contribution to both private and public schools. As our cities become denser we have to be more thoughtful and efficient about the use of space,” Stokes told the Herald.

Baker wrote to principals in her council area this week and will “invite them to have a conversation” about how the schools and council can support the community.

“Some of the private schools are the largest landholders in the North Sydney area,” Baker said.

“We have a lack of green space and 16 schools. Traditionally, there has been a hostile relationship between the local community and some private schools, and we are trying to reset that.”

Sydney Grammar principal Richard Malpass said his school was looking to make its planned Weigall Sports Complex – with a swimming pool, water polo, basketball, fencing and taekwondo facilities –available to “local children from our nearby public schools”.

“Grammar [is hoping] to provide access to sporting and aquatic facilities which, given the population density of the surrounding area, are in suffocatingly short supply in our part of the city.”

Grammar is spending more than $50 million on its new Rushcutters Bay centre. It’s one of multiple high-fee private schools investing in major upgrades to performing arts and aquatic centres, including Loreto Kirribilli which recently spent $33 million on a seven-storey “innovation centre”, part of a $100 million campus transformation over 50 years.

Shore’s Northbridge campus has six full-sized ovals and recently overhauled an aquatic centre.

The Shore School in North Sydney.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

St Ignatius’ College Riverview in the north shore recently shut its grounds to the public during term time. Local residents have long been able to access harbourside trails and a ferry wharf via the school.

Baker said access to schools’ playing fields and sports grounds would be particularly useful for local public students and the community in her local council area, and suggested occasional or after-hours use of facilities could be an option.

“For so much of the year, schools sit unused and most campuses close at 4pm. We should search for opportunities where space can be shared where it is suitable,” she said.

Stokes canvassed a similar idea in 2018, when he was the education minister, that was aimed at minimising duplication and trying to make sure the best facilities are available to all students.

“I think it is time we look at this again,” he said.

While there are examples where it is not appropriate for the public to access private school land, decisions could be made at a local school level about practical partnerships with the community, such as the use of a court or field for sports training, he said.

“The success of the ‘share our space’ scheme, where playgrounds at public schools are open to the public when not in use, has demonstrated a lot of the fears of opening schoolyards to the community are misplaced. NSW public schools have led by example.”

Former North Sydney Boys High principal Robyn Hughes said while some sharing of facilities between private and public schools already happens, it is mostly on an ad hoc basis. She welcomed the idea of increasing the sharing of halls and fields between schools.

“Especially for all outdoor activities, the use of large playing fields would be especially useful,” she said. “Ideally, it works both ways where the local schools partner and share spaces, but there has to be a willingness on both sides.”

A spokesperson for Cremorne’s Redlands School said its oval, indoor basketball courts and outdoor spaces were used “extensively during school hours, after hours on weekdays and on weekends for school sport and other school community activities and events”.

NSW Association of Independent Schools head Margery Evans said many independent schools already made facilities available for the community.

“We support school facilities and assets being used by third parties where mutually suitable arrangements can be agreed that resolve issues such as child protection, legal liability and cleaning.”

Evans said independent schools must satisfy government requirements that facilities are only to be made available to other parties when they are not required by the school, when they do not obstruct the school’s normal activities and where any sharing does not incur additional costs for the school.

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