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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-05-13 Daily Xml
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Public Works Committee: Norwood Morialta High School Redevelopment

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:41): I move:

That the 106th report of the committee for the Fifty-Fourth Parliament, entitled Norwood Morialta High School Redevelopment Project, be noted.

Mr Speaker, as you are aware, Norwood Morialta High School currently operates between two campuses. The middle school campus caters for years 8 to 10 and is located on Morialta Road West, Rostrevor, within the Campbelltown council. The senior school campus caters for years 11 to 12 and is located on The Parade, Magill, within the City of Norwood, Payneham and St Peters.

Norwood Morialta High School was allocated funding of $30 million as part of the Department for Education's capital works program and this funding was confirmed in March 2018, with further funding of $9.95 million allocated in February 2019 and another $12 million allocated in May 2020, bringing the total budget to $51.95 million.

Total enrolments across the two campuses of Norwood Morialta High School were at 1,487 as at February 2020, comprising 862 in the middle school and 625 at the senior school. The proposed redevelopment will consolidate the middle and senior campuses, accommodating up to 1,700 students, including the transition of year 7 students into high school in 2022. The Norwood Morialta High School redeveloped project will include the following scope of works:

the construction of a new three-storey middle school building, providing general learning areas, serviced learning areas, teacher preparation spaces, breakout spaces, presentation pods and a new canteen;

construction of a new two-storey building, providing specialist areas, including food technology, a commercial kitchen, creative arts, media, and additional learning areas;

construction of a new gym, including a weights room, change rooms, additional learning areas and teacher preparation spaces;

extension of existing building to provide an additional workshop;

refurbishment of the administration area;

refurbishment of teaching and learning areas;

refurbishment of the central learning hub, providing a new library resource centre and student support area;

refurbishment of the middle school laboratory and adjacent teaching support space;

a new accessible site entry, including a lift and upgrade of the facade;

construction of new sports courts adjoining the new gym;

landscaping and site works;

additional car parking; and

the demolition of existing buildings.

Construction is anticipated to be completed by the end of this year.

The committee examined written and oral evidence in relation to this project and received assurances that the appropriate consultation for the project had been undertaken. The committee is satisfied that the proposal has been subject to the appropriate agency consultation and meets the criteria for the examination of projects set out in the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991.

Based on the evidence considered and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee has reported to parliament and I update you on its report that it recommends the proposed scope of these significant public works.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services) (11:44): I also rise in support of the motion. It is my absolute pleasure to speak on the $52 million upgrade that is currently underway at Norwood Morialta High School. As part of the Marshall Liberal government's $1.3 billion education capital works program, the $52 million upgrade will increase the capacity of the campus on The Parade to 1,700 students, allowing all year levels to be on the same site.

The upgrade will also deliver a three-storey middle school building with a rooftop play space; a two-storey building for the school's technical and specialist precinct; a refurbishment and extension of the gym, as well as a new facade at the entry which is currently taking shape; landscaping; car parks; and sports courts. These new contemporary facilities will enhance flexibility in the use of spaces but will also continue to promote world-class learning facilities and experiences whilst maintaining the distinct middle and senior schooling principles.

It is no secret that there has been growing demand on schools in the eastern suburbs for some time because it is such a wonderful place to reside. It is extremely popular. This upgrade, which so many people from the school community and the broader community are excited about, is a critical part of increasing the enrolment capacity in the area. Whenever I attend the governing council school meetings for the Norwood Morialta High School, parents and teachers simply cannot hide their excitement for this particular upgrade.

It is difficult when speaking about the upgrade to convey just how big a project it is but, when you drive up or down The Parade and you see the magnitude of this upgrade, it is absolutely fantastic. It is going to be great for the local area. Project construction, as we know, commenced in term 4 of 2020. It will be delivered in a staged approach to minimise disruption to student learning and also student engagement.

I want to congratulate and thank the school leadership, the governing council, parents and students for their patience and hard work in ensuring this occurs. It is also very important that students continue to receive high-quality education at the school, and that school is extremely well known for delivering the highest quality learning in the state—in fact, you could argue also in the country. This is a very important infrastructure upgrade and an integral part of our government's $1.3 billion plan to build what matters for South Australian schools.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (11:47): I am pleased to comment on the Public Works Committee's report into the Norwood Morialta High School upgrade. This is a very important piece of work. For many years, the Norwood Morialta High School community, governing councils and principals have been arguing for the separated campuses, which have been in place since the early 1990s, to come together on one site. There are good reasons for this and it is reflective of other things that are happening around South Australia.

We know that transition points are a challenging point in education. They are a risk point for students who are potentially disengaged. There are benefits to having R-12 schools, certainly. But within the context of primary schools and high schools, which is the experience for most students, having a model that also has then a junior high school and a senior high school can be problematic. It is an extra transition; it is an extra risk point.

Norwood Morialta has been very successfully managing that risk and that transition for many years, having a middle campus in Rostrevor for the year 8s to 10s and a senior campus in Magill on the old Norwood High School site. But it is still a risk point and a transition point where, if we had them on one campus, it would be better. It is similar to things we are doing elsewhere in the state, where we remove these junior high schools and, instead, just have a high school on the one campus where possible. In Whyalla, there are two junior high schools and one senior high school, the Edward John Eyre High School.

In 2018, the government determined that we would follow through with the plans that that community had been asking for and have just one school. But one of the differences in Whyalla was that there was not a suitable site out of the three existing schools that could be extended to take on board all those students. None of them had the appropriate size or facilities to do a refurbishment and extension, so a new school in Whyalla, at a cost of $100 million, was identified.

A similar story was the case at Glossop High School where there were two campuses, at Glossop and Berri. We are doing a $17 million refurbishment of the Berri campus, which will be able to be extended to take on all the students from that school, bringing both campuses together and, because of the quality of the facilities at Berri that were existing, we were able to extend that campus to create the new school that was necessary and have it on one campus rather than, as in Whyalla, having to build an entirely new build.

The Norwood Morialta situation was somewhere in between. The facilities at the Norwood campus were such that we were able to continue with a merger on that campus and retain a lot of the existing facilities, but the size of those facilities was far too small for the combined campuses. To put it into context, there are about 1,450 students at Norwood Morialta at the moment and it will grow to 1,700, probably 1,800 next year, and on that Magill campus right now there are about 650 students, the year 11s and year 12s.

What this build is doing is not just increasing the capacity of Norwood Morialta from 1,450 to 1,800 but increasing the size of this campus from about 650 to about 1,800. It is an increase in excess of 1,000 students. To put that into context, that increase alone is larger than most schools in South Australia. It will be growing to 1,800 students, potentially larger than that. There is certainly a high level of demand for the quality education at this school, but to meet that new buildings are required—two new buildings in fact; a three-storey building and a two-storey building—in addition to the refurbishment of existing learning spaces, some improvements to the gymnasium, cooling and a new ergo room.

The new middle school building is a three-storey building with general and specialist learning areas. It is as large as many schools. There is a new two-storey building for tech and specialist precincts. The refurbishments of some of the existing classrooms are already finished, and I am pleased about that because one of the challenges with a lot of these builds is that you have a group of year 12 students who have done their schooling through the old facilities and they are doing their year 12 during a time of disruption when the school is being improved. They might come back in the future and be proud of their old school, but they are not going to get the benefits of some of those buildings.

That does not mean we should not do it, because we need to do it for the future, but I am pleased that at Norwood Morialta at least the year 12s will have their year 12 centre for the remainder of this year and be able to appreciate some of these new facilities. It has a terrific view of the new buildings that are being built.

Some in the community have asked, 'Why aren't you looking to retain that Rostrevor site to keep it as part of the Norwood Morialta High School?' I have been the local MP there for some time and spent time on the governing council, and I can tell members that if they want to see a school building facility that is not up to scratch, in terms of its design and its layout and the way it is designed to support learning, then the Norwood Morialta's Rostrevor campus is an example. It is not capable of delivering the type of curriculum that our students deserve. There is no prospect going forward that we would want to be using those buildings after the end of this year.

The teachers are doing a great job of delivering the teaching and learning in that space, but I had been arguing for many years that at the Rostrevor campus the buildings were not fit for purpose and could not be maintained into the long term. They will not be because those students will do very well at the Magill campus. There is this question mark that remains over the use of that Rostrevor campus site.

We know what the former Labor government would have done. When we came to government, we found that, of that $30 million that was first identified to do this work at Norwood Morialta, Treasury had predicated that $15 million would be provided by the education department from the sale of the Rostrevor campus land. They wanted to flog it off for housing. They did not tell anyone before the election, but that was the plan in Treasury. This government has taken a decision to reverse that budget decision and to reverse that expectation that the land at Rostrevor will be flogged off for housing, which was in the budget previously in the expectation that Education would find $15 million from the sale for housing.

The Liberal Party did not see that as the way forward and, frankly, had that happened, had that land been used for housing, the capacity pressures at the Norwood site, which are remaining significant even with the expansion, would only have been exacerbated as more families moved into that area, on top of the urban infill, on top of the new developments within the school zone that are currently taking place. So that was not a possible future, and the government is currently giving consideration to that Rostrevor site. Obviously there has been some information provided by InfrastructureSA about their views on how it should be used going forward.

What I would say to the members of the community in the area of the Norwood Morialta High School zone is that this is an area that is delivering great public education. This is a school that is very popular, and I think the public have shown a significant vote of confidence in their school, but the urban infill in particular is also seeing dramatic population growth, so this is a school that will be full from day one.

Jacqui Van Ruiten and the leadership at Norwood Morialta are exceptional and doing great work. They are being very flexible and creative in the way they are using the spaces. The hall at Norwood Morialta High School I have seen in three different configurations in the last year: a place for school productions and school assemblies, then it became the library for a while and it is now operating partly as the staffroom. This is a school that is working really hard to make the best use of the space they have, but it needs this upgrade, if only for the massive expansion of students who are going to be going there.

The funding that was allocated previously was $15 million in new money plus the $15 million from the sale of the land—that was the case previously. Our government forgave the $15 million so no land had to be sold and increased the budget to what was necessary to deliver the project. Swanbury Penglase have done a great job as the architects, and indeed Lendlease are doing tremendous work as the builders.

As the member for Hartley said—and he is a passionate member of the governing council, working hard for his local schools—if you drive down The Parade and have a look at this campus, you can see the scale of the work that is underway. It is no less than these students need to ensure that the curriculum can be delivered for not just the year 7s but the whole middle school and indeed across the six years of schooling offered at Norwood Morialta High School.

To the governing council chair, Sandra Mestros, and the whole governing council—many of whom, by the way, have been on the governing council for many years and remember the old plans about moving to the Magill uni site and have been arguing for this consolidation, some for more than a decade—this is a body of work that has come to fruition. When the work is finally completed, towards the end of this year, ready for the year 7s next year, it is going to look spectacular.

I think the students will be the beneficiaries, the community will be the beneficiaries and indeed we will remove that risk, that transition point, that problem point, of having kids moved from a different campus, from the junior secondary school to the senior secondary school. I commend the project to the house.

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:57): I acknowledge the contribution of the minister, who is in the process of seeing through an extraordinary capital works program in education right across the state. It is absolutely remarkable that so much work has been able to be done in the last 37 months. I am particularly proud that of course we have been able to see through this project and many others.

I also acknowledge the member for Hartley, who is well known as a passionate, committed and determined local member with a remarkable record of delivering for his local community. He is particularly interested—not just interested but particularly interested—in education and public education in his community and should feel equally proud that this project has been brought to completion today.

In the brief time remaining, I might turn to the Notice Paper and do some tidying to square away some matters. I do not want to be overly proprietary, but of course many of the matters on this particular Notice Paper are mine. I move that—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: We might just deal with Notice of Motion No. 6 first, member for Kavel. The member for Kavel's contribution has concluded.

Motion carried.

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