Hastings Secondary College Port Macquarie: Fund the upgrade for ALL 750 students, not 680 as currently planned
Petitioner:
Dr Meredith Wyatt
| Member:
Williams, Leslie
| No. of Signatories:
133
| Date closed:
27/05/2021
To the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly,
The Hastings Secondary College Port Macquarie Campus (HSC PMC) P&C, teachers, families and community members wish to draw attention to the facts that:
- Long awaited upgrades for our school are planned to cater for a school with a maximum capacity for 680 students (a 4 stream school). Our school has current enrolment in excess of 750 students (a 5-6 stream school) and is growing.
- Plans currently allow for just 50% of the school to be refurbished. Remaining rooms are small, not air conditioned and have had minimal improvements since 1962
Insufficient funding for this upgrade will result in inadequate provisions for teaching spaces, learning resources and accommodation for teachers resulting in poorer learning outcomes for our students. We are risking building: spaces for performing arts that are too small to accommodate all students; inadequate provisions for science laboratories; and staff rooms not large enough for all teachers.
Port Macquarie is a rapidly growing community and development of its public secondary schools has not kept pace with growth. Classrooms at the Port Macquarie campus are dated, in poor repair and are smaller than current regulations recommend.
We respectfully petition the Assembly to:
1. Fund full refurbishment of HSC PMC to accommodate the 750 students currently enrolled
2. Ensure that all teaching spaces in the school are fit for purpose and to modern standards.
We cannot wait another 60 years for the next refurbishment to address this.
