Construction project ready to commence at Fulham North Primary School, Adelaide

Fulham North Primary School in Adelaide was one of 1,499 schools to receive a share of $2.8 billion in funding under Round One of Primary Schools for the 21st Century, a key element of the Building the Education Revolution (BER).

The school receives $2,500,000 to build a new multipurpose hall and three new classrooms, a very welcome investment to the school’s 340 students, teachers and the community.

Opened in 1973, the school has outgrown its tired and small shelter shed that was used for indoor activities, and needed more learning spaces to keep up with their growing needs.

The new multipurpose space will provide the school with an indoor facility to house all the students at once for activities, assemblies, performing arts and other performances throughout the year. The teachers are looking forward to using the space that will have purpose built acoustics, proper storage facilities and a kitchenette and teacher prep space.

The new classrooms will feature a flexible floor plan to allow for a variety of class sizes and needs. The new spaces will have an art and activity space to inspire the student’s creativity, and an ICT computer pod space for interactive learning. The Principal, Mark Ireland said he is anticipating the new space will enable the middle primary classes will improve interaction and learning outcomes and create stronger student bonds between school grades.

Mr Ireland is delighted that progress is already well underway, with the appointment of Badge Constructions set to commence construction at the end of June and due to be completed in ten months, by April, 2010.

“It’s not just the teachers and students that are looking forward to using the new hall, community yoga and martial arts groups are also intending to use the space in the evenings, and we’ve had enquiries from other community groups that are interested in using the new space” said the Principal, Mark Ireland.

Badge Constructions Managing Director, Jim Whiting, said they welcome the opportunity to build first class facilities for the school community.

“In addition to the construction at Fulham North Primary, we’ve secured other BER projects in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia which will keep our staff and our sub-contractors busy in the coming months” he said.

Primary Schools for the 21st Century will provide $12.4 billion for all Australian primary schools to build new iconic facilities such as libraries, multipurpose halls or classrooms or to upgrade existing facilities. Two more rounds of funding will be announced soon.

For further information visit www.buildingtheeducationrevolution.gov.au.

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