We are in the fortunate position that we will be designing a completely new school for our learners. This process is lengthy and does not go unsupported by the Ministry of Education and other specialists such as architects and project managers.

This week, we kicked the process off with the first of a series of Master Planning Workshops at a social distance! Present at the first meeting were the architect team from Bladasso Cortese Noordanus (two in person, and two by zoom from Melbourne), the Delivery Manager from the Ministry of Education and two members of the Project Management Team from Rubix alongside the Principal, Deputy Principal and Assistant Principal. The primary objective of this meeting was to gain a feel for how the school currently operates, how students flow through the site throughout the day and how students transition to and from the site at the start and end of the school day.

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After school on Monday, a group of Primary Teachers met with the team to focus of their inquiry on the good, the bad and the interesting features of the site from their perspective. This meeting was repeated with Secondary Teachers on Tuesday morning. Each meeting concluded with the members present recording their first thoughts on the statement ‘The project will be a success if…’.

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Once complete, the Master Plan will identify the new use of the school property, clarify the footprint for the build and provide the school with a timeline and costing.

Our next meeting is scheduled for Week 1 of Term 4. The staff involved will be the teachers using specialist areas such as Technology, Art, Science etc. plus our Administrative Staff. This meeting may include a ‘discs’ workshop where we consider which areas need to be next to, near to or far away from eachother.

It is a good feeling to have finally got the ball rolling on this massive project!

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