St Luke’s Anglican School is looking to make changes to classrooms as part of its Early Learning Centre expansion and refurbishment project, planned for the grounds on Mezger Street.
An application was recently submitted to Bundaberg Regional Council for the school’s project, consisting of creating a new central flexible learning area, two new learning areas and the refurbishment of existing staff and administrative facilities.
The proposed development outlined in the project would give the new Early Learning Centre a gross floor plan of 940 sq m and an enrolment capacity of 134 children.
St Luke’s Anglican School business manager David Reed said the Early Learning Centre was poised to meet future educational needs by expanding and enhancing learning environments.
“An independent child care needs assessment report found there was additional need for child care places in the region in the medium-term future,” he said.
“This expansion will enable the St Luke’s Early Learning Centre to cater for additional demand, as we are currently at capacity across several programs.”
David said the expansion would enable the St Luke’s Early Learning Centre to cater for a younger age group of two to three years olds, compared to only three years and older.
“We will develop a Junior Room for 2 to 3 year-olds, which will be purpose-built to meet their age-appropriate and care needs,” he said.
“This will enable parents and children to join our community from an earlier stage.”
He said enrolment pressures in the current kindy room also required expansion.
“This will include new learning areas to provide more outside room to stimulate learning through connection with nature and internal spaces to support our approach of inquiring and imagining for a great start in their learning journey,” he said.
“Our pre-preparatory rooms require updating to ensure best practice can occur: with best line of sight, safe and stimulating environments and where children will nurture their love of learning and sense of wonder.
“The central flexible learning area will provide a wonderful learning environment for the children, because the environment will become adaptable to use a variety of resources and instructional strategies to personalise a child’s educational experiences.”
David said the St Luke’s ELC expansion project was the first stage of a new Built Environment Master Plan which was released by the school on November 7.
He said it was hoped the St Luke’s early learning centre expansion project would be constructed by the end of 2020, ready for enrolments commencing 2021.
The master plan is available on the school’s website.
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