Indooroopilly State High School overcrowding to stay until at least 2030

Overcrowding at one of Queensland’s biggest state high schools won’t start easing until the Brisbane Olympic Games, planning documents reveal.

The student population at Indooroopilly State High School won’t start falling until at least 2030. File Picture: AAP/John Gass

Overcrowding at one of Queensland’s biggest schools, Indooroopilly State High, won’t start easing until at least 2030, planning documents reveal.

Proposed new amendments to the top-performing westside school’s masterplan, published earlier this month, said enrolment numbers would not start to decline until 2030.

Its student population would not stabilise before 2035, when it was expected to drop to about 2500 children in Years 7-12.

The school currently has 2824 students but its stated capacity is only 2532, including temporary classrooms hurriedly installed just before term 1 last year.

Indooroopilly SHS announced an end to all out-of-catchment enrolments by 2024. Many of those were students enrolled in its highly regarded excellence programs.

Things got so bad at one point that it proposed converting its library into classrooms and even cramming some students into storage areas.

Student numbers at Indooroopilly State High School will stabilise by 2030-2035. Picture: Tara Croser

But the then Labor State Government stepped in and installed 10 demountable classrooms just before term 1 in 2024, with workers toiling into the night to meet the tight deadline.

As recently as three years ago 45 per cent of the school’s population, or 1084 students, lived outside the affluent catchment area which has a very high number of university-educated parents.

That hit a peak of 51 per cent in 2020, with claims many parents were engaging in “catchment fraud’’ by falsely stating they lived in the area.

The new enrolment forecast was included in amendments to the school’s masterplan.

The masterplan was brought under a Ministerial Infrastructure Designation, a process which bypasses Brisbane City Council planning rules.

It included more onsite carparks, a three-storey science and industrial technology design

centre, two-storey administration and food technology centre, three-storey learning centre with flexible spaces and a specialist arts area.

There would also be a three-storey performing arts centre which could be hired, sparking concerns from some of the 560 neighbours included in initial public consultation last year.

“Queensland Government Statistician’s Office analysis highlights that local preschool age and primary school-age populations across the Indooroopilly SHS catchment have started to decline,’’ the MID documents stated.

“There will be a decline in the secondary school-age population from around 2030.

“This will result in enrolments at the school easing from 2030 and stabilising at a more sustainable student population.

“With consistent application of the School Enrolment Management Plan, the Department of Education expects Indooroopilly SHS enrolments to remain between around 2850 to 2900 through to 2028 or 2029.

“From 2030 to 2035, it is expected that enrolments will progressively reduce before stabilising at approximately 2500 students.

“The school masterplan has therefore been developed on the basis of an ultimate capacity to accommodate up to 2500 student enrolments.’’

Indooroopilly State High School's high-tech V Block building is one of several multistorey buildings added in recent years to cope with surging student numbers.

The total number of teachers, just over 300, was not expected to change.

No trees would be cleared on the 12ha site. New buildings would not be in floodprone sections and the works would not worsen flooding in surrounding areas, the documents said.

Initial work was already well under way for Project 1 (a science and industrial technology centre) which would involve demolition of blocks F, J, K and N.

The performing arts centre involved demolition of the school hall and the last two new buildings — including administration areas, classrooms and a food technology centre — would see the demolition of blocks T, L, U, Y, H, S and P.

A total of 191 new car spaces was expected to reduce the chronic lack of on-street parking, with current parking levels below government standards.

The Carnarvon Rd drop-off/pick-up area would be expanded to add 15 spaces, addressing a current shortfall of spaces.

Originally published as Indooroopilly State High School overcrowding to stay until at least 2030