New homes without new schools is shooting planning in the foot

NSW governments have been opening, closing or amalgamating schools for decades in response to financial demands and demographic changes, but it seems like planning madness to shelve plans to build new schools in the very suburbs targeted for medium-density development.

New schools earmarked for St Leonards and Chatswood have been put on hold just as thousands of new homes are set to be delivered in the area under transport-oriented rezoning reforms, including at Crows Nest, where 3255 new homes are set to be built.

Herald education editor Lucy Carroll reports initial plans for new lower north shore schools were flagged by the former government in 2021, when funding was set aside for early planning of an education precinct. But Lisa Harrington, deputy secretary of School Infrastructure NSW, told a budget estimates hearing last week that changing enrolment demand meant there was no “urgent need” for a new primary at St Leonards and a lot of capacity at existing schools.

Instead, the government has committed to building eight new schools by 2027, the bulk in Sydney’s outer north and south-west suburbs, where enrolments have soared in low-fee private schools and the public system has struggled to meet demand driven by an influx of families to outer suburbs.

Indeed, overcrowded public schools in booming north-west and southern Sydney are operating at double or triple their enrolment caps, pushing some campuses to exceed official capacity by 1000 students. Data obtained by the Herald reveals at least a third of schools in The Hills Shire, Camden, Ryde and Hornsby are above their enrolment caps by more than 100 students each, the bulk of those being primary schools. Against this, while some public schools are being squeezed by surging enrolments, more than 300 NSW schools are underutilised, with empty classrooms and space for hundreds more pupils.

The overcrowding is being exacerbated by changes to catchment areas. For instance, parents in the north shore suburbs of Lindfield and Killara will lose the option to send their children to a top-performing high school after Killara High School lost a large part of its student catchment zone to Lindfield Learning Village — a school that supports an alternative learning approach in which pupils are placed in charge of their learning, and uniforms and timetables are flexible. The Killara High rezoning is a by-product of the unpopular conversion of nearby schools Asquith Girls High and Asquith Boys High into two separate co-ed campuses with distinct catchment zones.

The Minns government needs to build 377,000 new homes in the next five years and has unveiled sweeping planning reforms to reach the target, leading the opposition to repeatedly criticise the government for embarking on ambitious housing plans without planning for key infrastructure such as new schools.

The overcrowded schools in the north-west and south is a direct result of years of government planning not keeping up with demographic changes. Putting the north shore schools on hold suggests the Minns government has not learned the lesson.

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