Future of Bally

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Future of Bally Committee

In response to the impact of a rapid increase in student enrolments and aging facilities at Bally, the P&C voted to form a sub-committee to get the Department of Education to address parent concerns on this issue. The Committee was formed in November 2018.

The Committee’s objectives are to:

1.            Seek solutions to pressures created by large enrolments over the last 3 years

2.            Improve aged and poorly maintained student and staff facilities at the school

The Committee’s first task was to bring attention to overcrowding issues and the state of facilities at the school.  So far meetings have been held with:

  • The Director of Educational Leadership for our region in the Department of Education

  • James Griffin, Member for Manly

  • The CEO of NSW Schools Infrastructure

  • The Director of NSW Schools Infrastructure for the Northern Region

  • Demographers from the Department of Education

In terms of our mission to secure an upgrade and refurbishment of Bally’s facilities, we have had some early successes. School Infrastructure NSW has committed to refurbishing both the A & G toilet blocks which have been the subject of complaints for some time. School Infrastructure has also provided new classroom furniture and undertaken a detailed review of maintenance and cleaning issues at the school. The Committee aims to keep lobbying for further upgrades and currently focussed on classrooms and teacher facilities in G block.

The Committee has also sought to convince the Department to increase the capacity of the school to better accommodate current and projected student numbers. We asked that they look at rebuilding and expanding teaching spaces and, given the lead time for this objective, reduce the catchment area so that more control could be applied to enrolments in the short term. Unfortunately, the Department’s view is that Bally is in an enrolment “bubble” due to the high number of out of area enrolments that have been permitted in previous years.  As the catchment has been recently reduced (2 years ago) and the policy to accept students only within the catchment area now more stringently applied, enrolments are expected to progressively fall from 2021. This means there is no grounds for a “capital intervention”. We have been told that actual enrolments and projections are reviewed annually but the bottom line is that current enrolment projections to 2036 do not warrant additional facilities.

While the Committee is likely to have minimal influence on the demographers, Bally is currently over capacity and will be for a few years at least as out of area students graduate.  The question as to how these extra students (and teachers) will be catered to during these intervening years is part of current negotiations.  As a first step, the Department has agreed to an audit of school facilities. This will ensure that all parties are agreed on Bally’s capacity and there are no discrepancies on the classrooms and toilets the Department thinks Bally has compared to what exists in reality. Depending on the outcome of this audit, the Committee will then follow up on what support can be provided to accommodate the “over-capacity” enrolments until the bubble bursts.

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