By Mikayla van Loon
For over 10 years Mount Evelyn’s Birmingham Primary School has been campaigning for improvements to its existing hall and gathering place, which no longer caters to the growing school population.
“Our school has grown exponentially and has exceeded our projected enrollments and the hall we’ve got now was built in 1978 when the school was only 300 students and now we have nearly 700 students, we can’t all fit into that hall,” principal Patricia Enzinger said.
The school’s parent committee, alongside staff, have been advocating for the building of a multipurpose stadium, for both sporting and other needs at the school.
“We chose this school because of the innovation that it delivers, the new programs, the excellence in education and just opportunities for the children but the facilities, we’ve been let down,” parent Lisa Glassborrow said.
The renewed interest in the building of a pavilion-type facility comes after Evelyn Liberal MP Bridget Vallence made a funding pledge of $6.4 million on Thursday 6 October should the Liberal Nationals be elected in November.
“It would be great to have a new stadium at the school so that these kids, rain, hail or shine, can have learning opportunities in a stadium, can do sports and recreational activities, and can have school concerts or performances,” she said.
“Not only will the students be able to have access to state-of-the-art facilities for sport and performing arts, but the entire school community, including parents, teachers and friends, will have a central facility to come together as one.”
Not only does Ms Enzinger potentially see a stadium catering for the school but also the Mount Evelyn community.
“It would be an amazing asset for us but an amazing asset for the broader community,” she said.
“Mount Evelyn is such a sporting community and there’s other sporting organisations that could utilise a state of the art facility, so it’d be great for us but great for the broader community and that’s what we’re about.”
With the school also located within a bushfire prone zone, Ms Enzinger said for safety reasons, a pavilion or gathering place would be ideal for the school.
“We’re at risk of bushfire and we have been closed down when there’s been high risk days. We haven’t got a shelter in place that we can all gather, so this would also provide a shelter in place.”
The Labor government responded to the funding pledge announcement and said Birmingham Primary School was part of a statewide funding initiative for more inclusive school facilities on two occasions, as well as smaller grants for bushfire preparedness.
“While the Liberal Nationals reflect on their long legacy of cuts and closures – only Labor is continuing to make record investments in education, including at Birmingham Primary School, to ensure every student can access a great education regardless of where they live, their background, abilities or differences,” a spokesperson said.
In 2021 Birmingham Primary School received $178,000 to build an outdoor learning space, on top of $200,000 in 2018, from the Inclusive Schools Fund.
This was part of the State government’s $12.8 billion investment in building new schools and delivering more than 1,850 school upgrades.
