Newcastle Grammar School plans three-storey building with rooftop play area at Cooks Hill

The school is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement for the first stage of its proposed masterplan redevelopment project - which is considered a State Significant Development - to submit to the Department of Planning, Industry and the Environment in September.

An online survey and forum close on Sunday, August 15.

Head of School Erica Thomas said the school currently had about 270 students in kindergarten to year four at the Park Campus, where they are split into two or three classes per grade.

Related: Newcastle Grammar School to close preschool after 22 years to renovate campus at Cooks Hill

She said there were about 150 year five and six students split into three classes per grade at the Hill Campus, where secondary students are based.

She said the school was planning after the first stage is complete to have three classes per grade from kindergarten to year six at Park Campus for the start of 2024.

"Originally our school had a middle school which was years five to eight, but that sort of thinking isn't where we are anymore and we want a more seamless primary experience for our children," Ms Thomas said.

"What the [future] second stage will do is give us room to move to a four stream primary school if we choose to do that. Should Newcastle really boom - or when Newcastle continues to really boom - that will give us a future stage so that we will be ready, should we need to [expand]."

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The campus currently comprises the Sandi Warren Performance Centre or hall, a two-storey classroom block, two one-storey classroom blocks and an administration building.

Ms Thomas said under stage one, the administration block will be demolished and staff will move into part of the two-storey block, which will be refurbished.

A new three-storey building will be constructed along Union Street with an undercroft for outdoor learning and play, two levels of classrooms and a rooftop play area.

"We want to produce a standard of education that is contemporary and we want a world class primary school facility," she said.

"We know that Newcastle is growing and we need to prepare for the future.

"These old classrooms no longer serve what we want to do with primary education. We have an inquiry learning model for primary with explicit teaching and we know some [new] facilities can enhance what we want to achieve."

The hall will be refurbished to include a new library.

"There is no traditional library currently... we've got a very small little library-type reading centre, but we have lots and lots of resources around in the classrooms and in spaces between classrooms we have lots of books, and the students have learned very much to enjoy those in a fairly non-traditional way.

"We're looking definitely to include something that would be a bit more of a traditional library-type space."

Ms Thomas said landscaping work across the whole site and the demolition of the two one-storey blocks at the end of stage one will "vastly improve" play space.

"It's [play space] an absolute essential," she said.

"That's why we're thinking 'How do we do this, we've got a big green space on the Union Street side and we don't want to lose that', hence we push the building up, then we get the undercroft area. That is a massive area we will be using.

"We've then thought 'Right, when we demolish the other two buildings what does that deliver back to us' and we're looking at a range of things."

SHAC's concept design also includes "onsite vehicular circulation", which proposes cars enter the site via Corlette Street, drop their children off on school grounds and exit left on to Union Street.

"We would love to see that immediately, we want to try to solve some of the traffic problems for our community," she said.

Ms Thomas said the school did not have a start date for stage two, which includes a new building along Corlette Street with undercover parking and two levels of learning and staff spaces.

She said the school was using its own funds and would not receive any government funding for the works.

"The school has been saving for this. In 2017 we sold the Cooks Hill Commercial Centre where the gym Howzat was and a lot of the funding has come in from there.

"We have worked really, really hard for this.

"While we do not know the final cost at this stage, we need to plan for something that will be long term and it's likely this building will be around other typical buildings of its size and around that $20 million mark."

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