Headmaster Nicholas Sampson said the architecture was linked to the school’s educational philosophy:“The spaces[are] designed to encourage collaboration and flexible learning to support the school’s International Baccalaureate’s continuum approach and to help ready students for university and life beyond the school gates.”
University of Sydney education professor Helen Proctor said high-fee private schools “appear to be competing to outdo each other with new buildings and facilities”.
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“Bells-and-whistles projects galvanise the school communities and attract tax-deductible donations,and extravagant upgrades mean the schools become expensive to run,” Proctor said. “They are also supported by very generous public funding.”
NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos said while private schools invested in “obscene building projects”,public school students were in “demountables and in overcrowded schools that are in desperate need of refurbishment”.
The NSW government is investing $8.6 billion in public school infrastructure over the next four years on 160 new and upgraded schools. More than $9.1 billion has been invested in public school projects since 2017.
Paul Kidson,an education leadership academic at the Australian Catholic University,said the building projects at high-fee schools might encourage competition and the community needed “an honest discussion about these building pursuits in the context of the wider notion of the common good”.
But Newcombe said the amount of work independent schools were providing for the economy and the building industry was significant.
An Association of Independent Schools of NSW survey indicates private school enrolments are expected to rise by 2 to 3 per cent next year. Newcombe said capital funding provided to private schools was available to institutions in lower socio-economic areas with annual fees less than $12,000.
Cranbrook,which charges fees upwards of $40,000 for year 12,is the alma mater of billionaire Kerry Packer and his son James,and Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes. The school will become fully co-educational from years 7 to 12 within less than a decade. About 40 per cent of new student inquiries are from families with girls looking to enrol from 2026 onwards.
North said the response from students about the new building was positive. “They find it really inspirational,” he said.
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“The school’s environment is important for learning and designed in line with Cranbrook’s educational philosophy,which is about inquiry and experience,and being creative.
“A lot of the facilities were built 50 years ago,and they were built for a smaller school and fundamentally we needed more teaching and learning spaces. We had a 25-metre pool that wasn’t very good for water polo. So we decided to build a proper pool and learn-to-swim school.”
A Cranbrook spokesperson said the facilities would be open to the “broader community through various activities including services held in the memorial chapel,musicals which are open to other schools,orchestral and musical ensembles and a learn-to-swim school and swim squads”.
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