Foster Primary junior school moves into brand-new building

FOSTER Primary’s 87-student and four-teacher junior school moved into their brand-new building last week, after just a couple of months of educational and entertaining construction works going on right before their eyes in the schoolyard!

Consisting of 12 individual modules delivered by truck and then assembled on site, the new building has four classrooms, a multipurpose room, a soundproofed music room and a special learning space for one-on-one teaching and small groups.

There is also a separate storage room lined with shelves and pigeonholes, indoor lavatory facilities for both students and staff, the school canteen and a wide undercover area outside.

Prep/Grade One teacher Liz Kindellan said her class’s new room was bigger than the one they had in the old junior school building, and much lighter inside, too.

“We’ve got plenty of space and storage shelves, and even somewhere just for the schoolbags,” she said.

“As well, we now have an indoor place where all of the students in the younger grades can fit, without anyone having to go outside to get there!”

And then, in a perfectly coincidental demonstration, Mrs Kindellan and her junior school colleagues, Grades One/Two teachers Kristie Moore and Katie Jones, and Prep teacher Chantelle Wanklyn gathered all of their charges for a meeting in a warm and dry multipurpose room, while rain tumbled down outside.

“It really is great having a space like this where we can easily bring the kids together in one group,” Ms Moore said.

“We’ve only been in the new building for a couple of days, and already we can see that we’ll be using this room like this a lot in the future.”

At the meeting Mrs Kindellan reminded the students about Foster Primary School’s four main values of being safe, being caring and also “kind” as one pupil offered, being respectful, and being a learner.

She also spoke about “the three golden rules” the four junior school teachers had discussed among themselves and wanted all of the students to learn.

“These are the three essential things we expect everyone to do, especially in the classroom, and they are: one, stay in your seat unless you have a good reason; two, put up your hand to speak and wait for your turn; and three, follow instructions,” Mrs Kindellan said.

“People make choices, and we want you to make sure you make good choices.”

Then all of the students returned to their respective classrooms with their teachers to continue their usual Friday morning tasks in truly spacious comfort.

School education support officer Jo Moloney helped to move the junior school’s furniture, equipment, books and teaching resources from their temporary classrooms in other areas of the school earlier in the week.

“One day I clocked up 11 kilometres walking back and forth with loads of stuff!” she said.“It’s been a mammoth task moving everything in, but it’s certainly been well worth it.”

Comments are closed.