Dream assembly hall now a reality at the Friends’ School, Hobart

Construction has begun on a long-awaited new assembly hall at the Friends’ School in North Hobart, Tasmania, much to the excitement of students and the wider school community.

Founded in 1887, the Friends’ School is a co-educational Quaker school with over 1,300 students.

The school received $2.5 million in funding under the Primary Schools for the 21st Century element of the Building the Education Revolution (BER) towards the construction of a new assembly hall.

“This is a project we have had on the drawing board for some time, and the BER funding allowed us to bring it forward earlier,” explained Mr Nick Hutton, Commercial Manager, Friends’ School.

Tasmanian company Fairbrother Constructions is carrying out the project, and since construction began five months ago, substantial progress has been made.

“They mobilised very quickly, and we’ve been delighted with them,” said Mr Hutton.

The school’s gymnasium currently doubles as their hall, but doesn’t have capacity to house large groups of students at one time.

“It’s a long way short of ideal,” said Mr Hutton.

“Students are very excited about not sitting on the gymnasium floor ever again!”

The new assembly hall will have seating capacity for 800, as well as housing several music practice rooms, a classroom, office space, and various other ancillary spaces.

With performing arts a popular part of the school’s curriculum, a dedicated hall with space for music, dance and drama performances has generated a lot of excitement.

“We have a lot of performing arts students, and now we’ll have a lot more!” said Mr Hutton.

“It’s also a requirement for Year 11 and 12 art students to have their art displayed in order for it to be assessed. So a few times we have gone off site and that’s difficult, and if we don’t do that it takes over all available space in the 11 and 12 areas, so the foyer area in this hall will have hanging space for art,” Mr Hutton explained.

The hall is also expected to be popular with members of the wider North Hobart community – open to community groups for use outside school hours.

To commemorate the project, time capsules will be installed inside the hall.

“The classes in 2010 will have a tube in the wall, that at their 10 or 20 year reunion they will be able to take out and see what they were doing the day we opened the hall,” explained Mr Hutton.

The assembly hall is due for completion in October 2010.

The Friends’ School also received funding of $200,000 under the National School Pride Program element of BER for the refurbishment of their high school library, which began in the September school holidays, and was completed the following month.

“It was a 60s school library with more or less nothing that worked, and the spaces were terrible – all the wrong shape,” said Mr Hutton.

Local Hobart company Cordwell Lane Building was engaged to carry out the refurbishment, involving the work of seven employees.

The library was completely gutted and remodelled with all new counters, shelving, cupboards and storage spaces, offering both ample work space and more inviting learning areas.

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