Moss Vale will soon need another school. The state government’s decision to rezone farming land to create a minimum of 1100 new homes on the southern side of the Moss Vale Golf Course will result in more families who will require education for their children.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
No provision has yet been made for a school in the master plan for the Chelsea Gardens and Coomungie development, as revealed at a recent consultation meeting held at the Moss Vale Golf Club. The developers are not required to do this, yet if the housing estate is to be a reflection of the ‘ethos and healthy lifestyle of the Southern Highlands’ then some school facility will be required.
The state government has had the responsibility for ensuring that all children have access to a quality education for the last 150 years, and there is now an opportunity for the NSW Department of Education to show more foresight and acquire land in the middle of the site before the houses start mushrooming. The NSW Government sold a future school site in Moss Vale at the bottom of Hill Road just two years ago so funds from that should go towards another local school.
The developers, Aoyuan, have planned to incorporate a village hub where people can gather and have a sense of belonging, with a premier park and a convenience store. Close to this would be an ideal location for the NSW Government to purchase a suitable site and then plan a school for the future. Aoyuan want the whole location to be pedestrian-friendly with some shared bicycle ways so students could go to school safely without needing to be driven to and from school in Moss Vale every day.
My suggestion would be that a design brief for a school should take into account the latest research on building the best learning spaces. A new school could incorporate solar power with battery storage to allow reverse cycle air conditioning rather than dangerous unflued gas heaters in winter and excessive heat in summer. Breeze ways and wide eaves could also make the rooms more comfortable for much of the year.
A suitable future school could also incorporate a preschool and potentially even be a preschool to Year 12 school as the population increases. This would ensure that the housing and school would together be part of the ‘connected community’ that the developers are aiming for.
A further enhancement for Chelsea Gardens and Coomungie could be a modern multi-purpose building that would belong to the school and the community. This would be a wonderful sports facility as well as a performance space that children of all ages (up to retirement village status) could use. School sporting fields could also be for community use to encourage local teams as well as healthy lifestyles.
Ensuring the quality of education for the future population of Moss Vale is a priority for a healthy community, and an advisory group could be established to assist with planning for this. It could consult with local school children to seek their ideas on what they value in a school, and current experts such as the members of the Gonski Institute at the University of New South Wales should be more than happy to contribute their ideas for an effective future school for Moss Vale.
The time for planning is now rather than adding a school on once all the children are living in these 1100 new homes. Moss Vale Public School has been providing a quality education for 150 years but I don’t think anyone would like it to have high-rise buildings to accommodate possibly another thousand children. Let’s hope that the State Government takes this responsibility seriously and purchases a suitable site before any further development takes place. I encourage Aoyuan to talk with the government as soon as possible so that a real community can be built, not just 1100 new homes.
- Jim McAlpine is a past president of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council, former principal of Moss Vale High School and director, SPICE Education Evaluations.
