The new Googong High School is on track to be completed for day one of term one in 2027. But will it be big enough? Photo: Googong Residents’ Association Inc/Facebook.
Googong is one of New South Wales’ fastest-growing towns, but some parents will tell you it has a problem with its schools.
Googong High School (GHS) is scheduled to open for term one in 2027, but some locals are worried it is already unsuitable for the community before a single student has set foot on campus.
The current plan for the school is to have an initial capacity of 700 students, which will expand to 2000 in a second stage of development. However, some parents fear the initial capacity won’t be enough.
“Our primary school is already at over 800 students and it has only been open 2.5 years,” the town’s Parents and Citizens Association president Candice Cox said. ”For each new kindergarten class, we have around 150 children joining us.”
Region confirmed with the school that it has 784 pupils currently and is utilising two demountables after exceeding capacity.
Ms Cox and the P&C have been campaigning for the State Government to commit to bringing forward stage two of the high school development. She said parents wanted the government to open the school at full capacity for Years 7 to 10 by 2027.
“We have had an experienced school data analyst develop our own analysis that shows that if GHS was to open with only Years 7 and 8 in 2027 and go up a year at a time, it will be full and require demountables before the start of 2029,” she said.
“Googong Public School has been the same; we needed demountables within two years of opening.”
Member for Monaro Steve Whan said the government was taking parents’ concerns seriously, but that official figures indicated that 700 should be more than enough for the initial demand.
“We’re going to build a high school which has the ultimate capacity for 2000 kids, which is plenty for the community,” Mr Whan said.
”The initial planning is 700. The Education Department and their infrastructure team are saying that that’ll be enough.”
The development has a comparable capacity size to nearby public high schools in Cooma and Jerrabomberra, but Ms Cox is concerned Googong’s fast-growing population will outstrip the initial capacity.
“What we need is more funding now, to start the process on Stage 2,” she said. ”To build our school to the 2000 students it needs to have by 2029 so we won’t have to have our children live through another disastrous combination of being over-capacity, covered in demountables.”
Since the first residents moved into the town in 2014, the population has grown to more than 7000. It’s now one of the biggest towns south of Canberra.
And according to Queanbeyan-Palerang Council, it could hit 16,000 by 2035.
Googong’s public high school will be built behind the town centre. Image: Supplied.
Mr Whan has said he was regularly meeting with Schools Infrastructure on the progress of the high school, and was happy to continue engagement with the community.
“I’m really pleased that Labor’s going to be delivering the project,” he said. ”The current planning is for 700 kids, but I continue to talk to Schools Infrastructure about that.
“And I’m happy to have further information provided to me by the community if they feel they have questions.”
But Ms Cox said she was not convinced by the assurances.
“Unfortunately, we have not received any positive reactions or commitments from the government, other than they will talk to Schools Infrastructure,” she said.
“We don’t need them to talk to Schools Infrastructure, we need them to commit the funding.”
