Premier grades school projects

ON his first official trip outside Melbourne since the end of the state’s last wave of lockdown, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has visited capital works projects at three Ballarat schools.

Mid-last week Mr Andrews headed to Delacombe Primary where $6.5 million was spent on a new gym, tech classroom, multipurpose space, office, and canteen.

Earlier at Miners Rest he inspected $21.6 million worth of works on what is essentially a rebuild of the school.

“We’ve seen over our tour a number of different stages where we’ve been pleased to support this school [Delacombe] for a long period of time,” Mr Andrews said.

“This stadium is the star of the show. [It’s] not just great for Delacombe Primary but fantastic for the local community.”

Like many schools in the area, Delacombe Primary has experienced rapid growth. Ten years ago there were about 250 kids, now that’s nearly doubled to just under 490.

With the growth comes a need for more, and increasingly flexible facilities, and principal Scott Phillips said that’s what the new gym offered.

“The works are providing to our kids and our community a quality stadium, which prior to being built we just had a tin shed that was extremely hot during summer and very cold during winter,” he said.

“The kids love it, but I think more importantly the teachers notice it, because the gym surface is a soft surface, and the noise level is far less.”

As part of build, school leadership also added a tech classroom. The space is full of tools of the future like banks of 3D printers and tablet computers.

“The allocation was originally for a stadium, but we spent some extra money as we felt it was really important to add that technology centre,” Mr Phillips said.

“We thought that was really relevant to our school and our students and it’s a great addition to the space.”