Year 10 students Jorja Eade, Taeg Gentner and Memphis Retallick are inspired to work in Batemans Bay High School’s new food tech rooms, installed thanks to a $6 million HPGE upgrade. Photo: NSW Department of Education.
Time travel may not be scientific fact, but when your retro 1980s classrooms morph into shiny new laboratories and kitchens you can’t help but feel you’ve gone back to the future.
Feeling the full force of a $6 million upgrade are Batemans Bay High School’s young scientists and food technology students.
The upgrade is part of the Inspire program, which is rolling out high potential and gifted education (HPGE) in every public school.
At Batemans Bay High School that includes new facilities that enable a range of new programs, such as enrichment streams, extension opportunities and STEM.
A new commercial cookery room will soon allow the school to deliver a Certificate II program.
Technological and applied studies head teacher Darlene Dallas said the previous facilities were installed in the 1980s.
“As a teacher, I find it very motivating, because it’s a once-in-career upgrade,” she said.
“When they were created in the late 80s, they were for a different course. The courses the students study now are much more about industry and about getting jobs, so the new rooms reflect that.
“Knowing that we’ve got such brilliant facilities coming is really empowering for the kids, especially in a region that has a lot of hospitality work.
“Upskilling the kids just gives them confidence and skills to get better paid jobs and a higher standard of work, with better qualifications.”
Students such as Gracie-May Webb, Gabrielle Woodham, Jorja Eade, Taeg Gentner and Memphis Retallick are already cooking up career opportunities to service the region’s vital tourism and hospitality needs.
Year 11 hospitality student Gabrielle plans to become a technological and applied studies (TAS) teacher.
“It makes me excited to go to class,” she said of the upgrade.
“I’m interested in being a TAS teacher so I can teach kids how to cook, learn new dishes and cook for themselves when they’re out of high school.”
Future scientists and technicians will also learn in five upgraded laboratories, and students such as Tyler Little are taking full advantage.
He loves the new laboratories and wants to excel.
“It feels way better to work in,” he said of his new classroom, complete with fume hood, an adjustable experiment bench and walls painted in Batemans Bay High School’s signature red and black.
“I love everything about the field. I like physicists, biologists, geologists. I like finding out new and surprising things.”
Science, agriculture and biology teacher Rebecca Davey is “super excited” to be teaching in the new laboratories.
“We can really extend students,” Ms Davey said.
“We have a fume hood in every laboratory now, which is great for experiments that produce smoke or flames.
“Often, we have experiments that require the use of chemicals or materials that can have a higher risk, and the hood offers more protection; the fumes are carried out through filters.
“They walk in and are in awe at how beautiful it looks and they were all vying to be in here.”
Principal Paula Brennan said wheelchair-accessible laboratory benches, which could be raised or lowered, thanks to a flexible hose to the sink, meant equity was “not an afterthought”.
Batemans Bay High School is one of 33 NSW public schools benefitting from a $100 million statewide investment in science and technology laboratories, kitchens, libraries, creative arts spaces, sporting facilities and design workshops.
