Enrolment boom
ENROLMENTS skyrocketed in local schools across the region as students returned for term one last Wednesday, January 30.
Leongatha Primary School accepted a record 565 students, including 12 new students and 94 Preps.
Leongatha Secondary College welcomed an extra class of Year 7 with 124 enrolments.
Foster Secondary College saw its numbers grow to 262 with 41 Year 7 students.
Most notably, Wonthaggi Secondary College’s enrolment intake caused numbers to soar to a whopping 1380. The Department of Education and Training confirmed it is the biggest government secondary college in Gippsland.
Dudley campus principal Ross Bramley reported 280 Year 7 students – 40 more students than last year – had enrolled with numbers still growing.
Mr Bramley received another five enrolments within two days of school going back, as well as late enrolments. Thirteen homegroups were created to accommodate the Year 7 cohort.
There are now 760 students at the Dudley campus and 620 students at the McBride campus.
College principal Darren Parker said 10 new teachers and one welfare coordinator had joined the faculty across both campuses to cover teachers on leave and to accommodate the growing numbers of students.
Mr Parker attributed the growth to the money recently spent on upgrading Wonthaggi’s facilities.
“Bass Coast is clearly growing and Wonthaggi has been identified as a rural hub. The population growth is supporting our need for improved infrastructure, which we are receiving with the State Government funding our new school and the hospital,” he said.
“I think people are seeing the quality of our school and the facility upgrades will impact on growth.”
A new state of the art senior campus is set to open in McKenzie Street for the start of the school year in 2020.
To accommodate the population growth at the Dudley campus, two more portables will be used as classrooms.
Mr Parker said although an overhaul of the junior campus’ facilities would be beneficial in the long run, the focus is on the promised campus for Phillip Island.
“At some stage we will be looking at upgrading the facilities at Dudley, but for the time being we are hoping the school promised for Phillip Island will alleviate some of the pressure on the campus,” he said.
During the 2018 election, the State Government promised a new junior campus for Phillip Island and Waterline catchment families.
The school is timelined to open in 2022.
“We are building 100 new schools over eight years and in Bass alone eight in four years,” Bass MLA Jordan Crugnale said.
“The whereabouts of the school will go through a good process including working with families, school community and interested people for their valued input, also factoring in growth projections, land and centrality.”
Enrolments are steady at Mary MacKillop College in Leongatha, where a new $4.5 million Senior School will be built later this year.
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Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Feb 5 2019. Filed under Featured, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
