By Goya Dmytryshchak
One of Hobsons Bay’s fastest-growing schools has received more than $1 million in state government funding for four new classrooms.
Williamstown North Primary School has been allocated $1.022million for a double-storey relocatable building that will be open for term one next year.
Principal Jim Cahill said the school had grown from 650 students six years ago to 810 today.
He said the school had a “designated neighbourhood boundary” that meant it could only accept children from within that local zone, regardless of interest from families outside the area.
“Our enrolments are completely limited to that area and basically there is no access to the school for anyone beyond that,” he said.
He partly attributed the school’s growth to increased residential development.
“The demography of Williamstown continues to change and we’ve had townhouses, flats, units and apartments come up in the area as well,” he said.
“I think families are making more flexible choices in regards to accommodation compared to the past.
“Certainly, the school has a very strong record of achievement … I think there’s certainly a high level of confidence
from parents in their choice of Williamstown North as a government primary school.”
He said the school’s NAPLAN results were “very rigorous and robust” and the school prided itself on inclusion, which was recognised with a Victorian Education Excellence Award for Outstanding Inclusive Education in 2016.
School council president Michael Lynch said the leadership team had worked hard over a number of years to manage growing enrolments and was very pleased to have secured the significant investment for the new classrooms.
Williamstown MP Wade Noonan said the school had also received additional classrooms in late 2016.
“It’s related to the fact that their enrolment growth really has increased quite rapidly over the last five or six years,” he said.
“The school also operates with a zone and therefore its enrolment catchment means that when the parents want to enrol their children at the school, if they live in the zone, the school is somewhat compelled to take that enrolment.
“Victoria went through a baby boom between about 2007 and 2009, and we’re seeing the impact of that baby boom starting to increase enrolment numbers right across our schools.”
