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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-04-30 Daily Xml
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Parliamentary Committees

Public Works Committee: Nuriootpa Primary School Redevelopment

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:01): I move:

That the 49th report of the committee for the Fifty-Fourth Parliament, entitled Nuriootpa Primary School Redevelopment Project, be noted.

Witnesses presented to the Public Works Committee at a public hearing on 13 February 2020 regarding the proposed Nuriootpa Primary School redevelopment project. Mr Speaker, you will know that at that time the world was, of course, still a normal place, although knowledge of the virus was growing.

Nuriootpa Primary School is, as the member for Schubert well knows, an established school with approximately 300 students accommodated primarily, he tells me, in a 1977 building that has had minimal redevelopment since construction. The form of that building and its various defects were presented in some detail to the committee and were of interest to members discharging their duties. The redevelopment works at Nuriootpa Primary School are expected to assist in refurbishing and redeveloping learning facilities at the school and also to provide a contemporary learning space and environment to enhance student engagement and also enhance learning outcomes.

The Nuriootpa Primary School Redevelopment Project will include the refurbishment of existing facilities to accommodate approximately 450 students—up from 300—on the primary school site. The scope of the redevelopment will include refurbishment of existing main buildings to provide a flexible contemporary learning environment, as I mentioned, replacement of the roof and associated ceilings.

As the member for Schubert also informed me, at the time of its construction that roof was a marvel of architecture, but it has over the years been of some concern to the school community: in short, it leaks. A new covered outdoor learning area and a new covered walkway will be constructed and aged relocatable buildings will be demolished.

The Department for Education has advised that the project has considered the necessary and important requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act with respect to making provision for persons with disabilities. It is expected that when complete the project will provide modern educational accommodation and deliver to the requirements of the Department for Education's benchmark accommodation for students in a primary school.

The key outcomes of the redevelopment project when complete include the provision of a fully integrated primary facility, development of creative, flexible learning spaces, to which I have earlier alluded in some detail, and the provision of contemporary learning areas that are expected to support 21st century pedagogy. The estimated total cost of the Nuriootpa Primary School redevelopment is $7.5 million, and the construction is expected to be complete by December 2021.

The committee examined written and oral evidence in relation to this project and received assurances by the Department for Education and DPTI officials that the appropriate consultation in relation to this project had been completed. The committee is satisfied that the proposal has been subject to appropriate agency consultation and meets the criteria for examination of projects as described in the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991. Based on evidence considered and pursuant to 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the scope of the proposed public works.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (11:06): I rise today as the member for Schubert to wholeheartedly support this report being noted by this chamber. It is an important project in an important educational facility in the beautiful Barossa Valley. I have visited this facility a number of times and been taken on a tour by the principal, Jill Hess.

For those who have not visited, this facility was a prototype around schooling pedagogy that was developed in the seventies. It essentially consists of a large round building that at the moment has the library facilities in the middle and a series of classrooms around the outside. The difficulty was that as it was originally built there were not any walls between those classrooms.

When I first visited the facility, I am going to say off the top of my head, about four years ago, what we had was a situation where groups of children in classrooms were huddled in corners of this large circle-shaped area, with teachers with head-mounted microphones and speakers trying to teach their students and amplify their voice to get over the background noise of students from other classes inside the same room undertaking their study. Quite clearly, the situation was not acceptable.

The teachers on the ground and certainly the principal, Jill Hess, did a great job of making this situation work, but it was not ideal in the 21st century for the education that we want to provide to our students. The Minister for Education and I were fortunate enough to be there for the opening of the first stage of the redevelopment of that school, where essentially part of that arc was turned into a series of classrooms and then an open learning area. On the day the Minister for Education and I were speaking to students about the difference in their ability to just quietly learn in a space that did not have background noise from classrooms all across the campus. It made a huge difference to them.

This next lot of $7½ million in this next project and redevelopment completes that change. I think it will make a huge difference to the learning outcomes that we are going to see at Nuriootpa Primary. Funding of $7½ million has been in the can for a couple of years now. It has gone through its consultation and design phase and we are now ready to proceed with this project. What we are going to see as part of this is a fully integrated primary facility, the development of creative, flexible learning spaces to enhance student engagement and, most importantly in my view, the provision of contemporary learning areas that support 21stcentury pedagogy.

The proposed solution talks about the administration extension that is to be a readily identifiable, vibrant entrance for students, staff and visitors to the school and that the refurbishment of the existing main building will provide contemporary learning areas, creating light-filled, clean, and defined but flexible learning spaces by re-imagining the existing fit-out to suit current and future pedagogy. That is a long way of saying that we are actually now going to have defined classes and defined learning spaces for students. They are going to be able to undertake that study in a much quieter environment that actually does open up the space.

We are also going to see a new covered outdoor learning area. Again, I think that is extremely important. The school has good open space facilities there for students but the opportunity to provide something outdoors but undercover is a great step forward. There will be new covered walkways and obviously the demolition of some ageing transportable buildings.

What is also exciting about this is the opportunity to refit the inside of this space. It still has an ageing air-conditioning system, one that is essentially externally mounted to the building. It also has roof insulation made of a form of thatch on the underside of the roof that can have the potential to create issues. All that will be a thing of the past as this project progresses and, as the local MP, who has been fighting to rectify and fix this issue for a long time, this is a fantastic step forward.

There are currently about 300 students at the school, give or take, and what will be done here will enable that to increase to 450 students as part of the new facilities. We know and have seen that families do gravitate towards more modern facilities. Given some of the imbalances in the catchment in the Barossa, between Angaston Primary School, Tanunda Primary School and Nuriootpa Primary School, we will see, as a result of this project, a rebalancing of student numbers and potentially more students from Nuriootpa choosing to go to a school in their local township.

I would like to thank the education department for the work it has undertaken in getting to this point. I know that it was an identified need the department had for a long period of time and one that, together now with my department, we have been able to come together with a solution that is going to see this school become fit for purpose for the next generation of Nuriootpa kids to flow through. It also complements money that this government put on the table, some $4-odd million, that is going towards upgrading Nuriootpa High School, a project that I look forward to speaking about in this forum very soon.

We have seen a real explosion in the number of children attending Nuriootpa High School. I think that stands as great testament to the hardworking staff there. Former principal Neil White and current principal, Gerri Walker, do a great job. However, we are now at a point where the school has some 1,100 students, a curriculum with subject lists as long as your arm, and an amazing amount of diverse opportunity for students to learn. Again, they have some ageing infrastructure and some transportable buildings that are not fit for purpose anymore. I think the opportunity, again through this investment, to be able to upgrade those facilities, provide for more capacity and provide, as this report notes, contemporary learning spaces in line with current pedagogy is an extremely important step forward.

Lastly, these projects are about improving learning outcomes but they are also about jobs. As we work our way through this COVID pandemic, these projects are helping to underpin the civil construction sector in South Australia. In fact, in talking with industry we were potentially looking for quite a hot, overheated commercial construction market in South Australia with a massive $1.5-odd billion worth of education infrastructure being built, together with about $1-odd billion worth of health infrastructure, and private sector investment. What we have seen over the course of the COVID pandemic is that a number of private sector builds were put on hold, most notably the upgrading of Burnside Village. It actually now provides a space for us to do everything we can to accelerate the build of both these stage 1 and stage 2 education infrastructure projects so that we can keep jobs in the commercial construction sector.

Projects like this, projects like the ones I know are to come on the list to discuss this morning, are exactly the things that are going to keep people in work. Hopefully, as much as we can we will accelerate that work so that whilst this pandemic is going on we are doing everything we can to spend public money delivering great educational outcomes and keeping people in work during this difficult time.

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:15): I thank the minister for his contribution and also for his focus on the educational needs of his community, as well as his commitment to this project over many years. I think some of the information he has shared with us bears repeating: the increase in the capacity of this particular school from 300 to 450 students but, most particularly, the resolution of an architectural problem at the school, a much-admired building, but one that is not necessarily best suited to contemporary teaching techniques, with open spaces within which it is hard to deliver a class because of distraction from other classes in the same environment and, of course, with a roof that, although particularly attractive with its thatching, had leaked for many years.

It is right, as the minister emphasised, to thank principal Hess as well as the school community for their determined advocacy as well. We thank them; they presented well to the Public Works Committee and their evidence was valuable and useful and assisted in our deliberations. It is a great pleasure to bring this report to the house and note that $7.5 million will be invested to improve educational facilities in the Barossa.

Motion carried.

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