Page 2468 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 13 August 2014
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of hours school care facilities and outdoor learning and play areas. The school will also include facilities for music and environmental science. The school playing field is to be developed as part of the project and is also designed to be a community playing field.
The tender process used for the project has introduced tender design and construction innovations and has built-in longer term maintenance components. By utilising the tender design and construction innovations in the project the territory is achieving improved value for money for the project. I look forward to the first day of the 2016 school year when Coombs Primary School will welcome its first students into the most modern school in the ACT.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Ms Berry.
MS BERRY: Minister, could you update the Assembly on the work undertaken at Duffy Primary School to accommodate the enrolment growth from the Molonglo Valley?
MS BURCH: I am pleased to update the Assembly on the successful expansion at Duffy Primary School. This project has provided an additional seven classes to a school experiencing enrolment pressures due to the regeneration and expansion of the local area and the establishment of the new suburbs in the Molonglo district. The project was recently nominated in the 2014 ACT master builders and Cbus excellence in building awards for a commercial project exhibiting technical difficulty or innovation. It would only happen at Duffy school.
The additional capacity at the school will cater for children living in Weston Creek, the rural areas west of the district and the new Molonglo suburbs until the Coombs primary school opens in 2016. Following extensive consultation with the school and local communities, an innovative, off-site modular construction method was chosen to provide a high quality, cost-effective, timely and flexible solution for the school, The classrooms were constructed in Melbourne and assembled on site in time for the start of term 1 of this year. The classrooms provide a better relationship with the existing school than traditional transportable classrooms. If required in the future, the classrooms can be relocated to another school site.
I am told that school community is delighted with their new classrooms and associated fit-out. I was there; I remember standing within the grounds with the principal as these very modern, off-site modular construction units were being placed there. I will have to go back before the year is out and see for myself these new classrooms and the opportunities they are providing the students. This additional space has certainly provided much-needed flexibility in the delivery of the school’s programs and is serving as a pilot for an innovative construction option for future school expansions and growth.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Dr Bourke.
DR BOURKE: Minister, how will the new early childhood centre at Holder support families in this region, and what has the reaction to the new centre been?
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