School expansion caters to growth

STAFF and students at Bannockburn’s St Mary MacKillop Catholic Primary School started their school week with a visit from a special guest following exciting developments courtesy of the State Government.

Member for Geelong, Christine Couzens, toured the school on Monday for an insight into how the school’s infrastructure will be expanded with $2.4 million from the Non-Government Schools Capital Fund.

The cash will be used to build four general learning areas as well as a dedicated visual arts building, with the latter completing the development of the institution’s senior school building.

Ms Couzens said the additional infrastructure is about catering to the school’s growing intake.

“They know they’re going to reach capacity by 2026 so this is about making sure they have enough classrooms to meet the growing demand of Bannockburn’s growing community,” she said.

“We really want children to be able to attend schools where they live so we’re always looking at what those needs are because it’s really important for growing communities.”

St Mary MacKillop Catholic Primary School currently has 370 students, and principal Anthony Drill said the expansion will equip the school for 500 young learners.

“This will give us the extra classes to put everyone in,” he said. “We’ve also got our visual arts room at the moment and there’ll be some additions into the new building which’ll accompany that.

“This is wonderful for the school because otherwise we’d need to bring more portables onsite which would be pretty ordinary so having beautiful classrooms for the kids is great.”

The works will complete stage four of the school’s masterplan.

St Mary MacKillop Catholic Primary School was previously allocated more than $3.5 million as part of the Non-Government Schools Capital Fund to help establish the school, which was previously Bannockburn Primary School.

“Since we opened in 2017, we’ve always been expanding,” Mr Drill said.

“The plan’s been to get to 21 classes and to do that, we need these buildings.”

The expansion is set to be completed by early 2027.