Thousands of new students to hit overcrowded Sydney public-school classrooms - The Daily Telegraph

Skye Molyneux with son Hugh Vermeesch, 11, outside Crown Street Public School / Picture: Nic Gibson Source: News Limited

SYDNEY schools are in crisis as thousands of new students flock to already overflowing classrooms.

Two years ago the state government predicted a wave of new enrolments - admitting that a new school would need to be built every two weeks across the different education sectors just to keep up with demand.

Sydney's kindergarten intake has jumped nearly 20 per cent over five years to a record of more than 40,000 this year, yet class sizes have remained static at an average of about 19 - below the department's target average of 20.

But the government has repeatedly slashed its capital works budget.

Only nine new general-purpose public schools are expected to open in Sydney in the next three years to cope with about 20,000 extra students.

Meanwhile, kids' play space is being eaten up by demountables.

The government has opened just a single school - Wilton Public on the city's southwestern outskirts - since the start of 2011.

Principals have resorted to desperate measures to cope with the schoolyard crush, from staggering recess and lunch in "shifts" to using halls as an extra classroom.

While northern Sydney has consistently recorded the most heavily overflowing primary schools, junior schools in the inner city, east and south are also at 97 per cent of their permanent capacity.

Skye Molyneux, a long-term campaigner for a public high school in the inner city, said it was "mind-blowingly stupid" the government kept encouraging people to live in the fast-growing areas without planning where their children would go to school.

She said Crown Street Public in Surry Hills - which her youngest son Hugh, 11, attends - had reached capacity and education officials were now "shrinking the boundaries" as a stopgap solution.

"In three or four years when all these primary-school kids get into high school, the shit will really hit the fan," she said.

At the same time, the state's capital works budget for primary and high schools plunged from $640 million in 2011 to $420 million this year.

The government has signed an agreement with the NSW Teachers' Federation to maintain class size rules until 2016. Yesterday a spokesman for Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said there were no plans to change the class size policy.

Martin Fogarty, from the Northern Sydney District Council of P & C Associations, said he would not want to see classrooms simply filled with more students to meet the demand.

His school, Cammeray Public, has had eight kindergarten classes for the past three years.

The school now runs recess and lunch in two sessions each day so students have space in the small playground, which is being increasingly taken up with temporary classrooms.

Opposition Leader John Robertson said the state's growth was "just not sustainable" if the government failed to build new schools.

"We can't cram all these kids into existing classrooms - we can't just erect dodgy demountables," he said.

Mr Piccoli said the government had already spent more than $200 million on capital works in schools across the Sydney area and the latest budget included $70 million to address "enrolment pressures" at northern Sydney schools.

At the same time, Catholic school officials are planning to open at least 10 new schools in some of Sydney's fastest-growing regions over the next five years.