Ultimo Pyrmont Public School

Dear Sir/Madam,

While I understand the need for a new school, I do have concerns regarding the increased physical size of the proposed school, and with the increased number of students to be accommodated (more than double the current 300 students).

My specific concerns are:

(a) inconvenience and disruption of the current peaceful environment for residents of Acacia Gardens, during the extensive excavation, bulk earthworks and building works for a period of two years;

(b) health concerns for residents of Acacia Gardens, due to excessive noise and dust from the activities outlined in point a above. Also concerned about increase in vermin around the building site;

(c) the noise from the proposed rooftop sports courts. Particularly concerned with the weekend use of these facilities by private individuals. There will be noise issues outside of school hours. There will also be security issues, if private individuals are using facilities unsupervised;

(d) the significant increase in demand for car parking in the area during construction, and then during and outside school hours after construction completed. It will be difficult for family and friends to visit residents of Acacia Gardens.

Given the above reasons, I wish to lodge an objection to the proposed development works.

For your consideration.

Kind Regards,

[Redacted]

We recently purchased an apartment in [Redacted].

We are very concerned about the out of hours use of the proposed basketball court on the roof of the new school. We have serious objections to the noise that will come into Acacia Gardens. We work from home and often out of normal business hours including late nights and early mornings. This noise will be very disruptive to our currently peaceful complex. The use of the basketball court should be only for the school, and absolutely not on the weekend.

Further we are very concerned about the construction hours. We think that starting at 0700 is too early in this heavily populated residential area. This is the most densely populated suburb in the country and construction starting at 0700 is unacceptable.

The school should have been built on the land that was available on Wattle Street closer to the Fish Markets.

We cannot have the peacefulness of this large and densely populated apartment complex and community disrupted like this.

request for air conditioning to be mandated in all class rooms in new Ultimo Public School classrooms as venting system proposal put forward in submission will not suffice on very hot days. I enclose link friom Harvard State University to support learning difficulties for students in extreme heat

http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jisungpark/files/temperature_test_scores_and_human_capital_production_-_j_park_-_2-26-17.pdf

More consideration needs to be given to the amount of dust, noise, traffic pollution construction and demolition will cause in the area. Ultimo is surrounded by freeway underpass and overpass and major artery roads to CBD which adds to noise and dust pollution as well as speeding traffic and trucks. Construction and demolition crews must be answerable to higher levels of care taken to minimise impact on community before anything begins. There seems to be a disregard for precautions regarding community safety until after an incident has occurred and this is really not acceptable.

The establishment of a temporary school and rebuild on the existing site has never been the preferred, or a long-term solution to inner city kids education need. However, parents were placated by DET and McLachlan Lister with the promise that the rebuild would be world's best practice in design and use of space.
I now understand that the design has omitted overlooked features that were originally agreed, specifically ground of my object relate to:

1. Airconditioning. While I am all for passive cooling to reduce energy emissions and costs, it does become a medical issue for my child (and I'm sure for other students with health conditions, now and in the future), if air conditioning is not provided. More generally, the comfort of the classroom impacts learning outcomes.

Airconditioning is currently provided in all classrooms at the school as a standard feature and should continue to be an available option to use on days where passive cooling is not enough.

2. The hall is much smaller than what was previously advise by DET and McLachlan Lister. It was promised that the halls at the tempory school and in the new build, would serve the school community as well as the broader community. This included afterschool care, Japanese group, community play group etc. The size of the hall needs to be larger in size to become the 'heart of the school' (see Request for SEARS, Preliminary Concept, page 2) and provide these multi-purpose uses that integrated the community.

Yours sincerely,
xxx

The school should have air conditioning in every classroom.

No business would set up an inner-city office without air conditioning. Neither the Department of Education or the Department of Planning would put its executives in an office without air conditioning.

Why should young children - whose age means their bodies are less able to cope with heat and temperature regulation than an adult - be subjected to the discomfort of a classroom without air conditioning?

There are numerous studies that show students' academic marks go down when classroom temperatures rise above 25 degrees Celsius.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0136165

The current Ultimo Public School has air conditioning in the classrooms, after lobbying by parents to get it included.. The proposed rebuilt school is a step backwards, with no air conditioning. The rebuilt school - with a high density student population bof up to 800 - is retrograde and unfit for purpose.

I am terribly concerned about the plan to not have air conditioning for the children at the new school.
Children need to be comfortable in order to learn and to thrive at school. If the children are either too hot, or, too cold, they will not be able to concentrate and learn to the best of their ability and some children may even fall behind in class.

I am also concerned about the size of the school hall. Being in the school hall for assembly and special events is vital to creating the sense of school community that everyone needs. The school hall needs to be large enough for all the students, teachers, parents and members of the community to enjoy.

The height of the balconies should seem to be too low for my liking. Kids do like to climb and test boundaries and a child could easily fall.
The safety and well being of our children at school should always be of the highest priority.

The hall and basketball courts intended to be shared with the community must be easily accessible from outside the main school buildings.
The school must be air-conditioned. It is on a site surrounded by high-traffic roads, which are noisy and polluting. The school community paid for airconditioning in the existing school, and the Department of Education assured us that current assets would be retained. If the school community has to pay again for airconditioning, the buildings must allow for airconditioning to be retrofitted readily and without greater expense than the cost of the plant.
The single lift must be robust and easily repaired locally if it does break down, as it is the only access for wheeled traffic to the library.

We welcome the design and the community consideration as part of the proposal but fear the Hall size will be too small and the public access to the basketball court a little convoluted.

We understand the demolition of the existing school will start in February 2018. We wish to draw your attention to the threatened Work Zone in Bulwara Road heading south along Jones Street for the "New Life" development, with the result that the residents in Burlinson Gardens and the residents nearby will be "sandwiched" between the two sites suffering from the noise and pollution from both ends. We would suggest that site access should be from Wattle Street to minimize the impact on the local residents.

We also believe Ultimo Public School children may be put at additional risk going to school in the morning and returning home or to the Community Centres in the afternoon if the work zone is moved to Bulwara Rd.

Submission concerning the design for an expanded Ultimo Public School.
I support this design as a school for 560 students and object to it as a school for 800 students.
The design for the expanded Ultimo Public School is innovative, attractive and impressive. I love the use of space and the way class rooms open into a 3 storey library space that also doubles as a sound barrier against Wattle Street traffic. But this is a plan for a <624 student capacity school, not an 800 capacity school. There are also some other issues.
1. The design has no reverse cycle air conditioning, which makes it not fit for use as a modern primary school in Australia. Good design can reduce energy costs but not to the point of eliminating the need for air conditioning in the Sydney climate. There is no office block or equivalent that is successfully managing all year around without air conditioning in the local area. NONE. This design will be too cold in winter and there will be days when it is too hot. Temperature control is directly related to educational achievement. (http://www.ncef.org/content/study-relationship-between-air-conditioned-classrooms-and-student-achievement)
Yes we managed without air conditioning back in the day but it damaged kids learning back then also. It is not acceptable in our office blocks to swelter and freeze, why do we do this to our kids?
2. The minimum standard for outdoor space for a primary school is 10m2 per student. Despite the multi-level design there is only 6,240 m2 of playground space including the open corridors and basketball court. So the maximum capacity of the school is capped at 624 students in this design. Wentworth Park is a public park not school property and cannot be used in the design calculations. It is already very heavily used (including by 3 other schools) and usage is expanding rapidly. This park is flood- prone and was allocated as a military camp during the war. We can use it but not rely upon it. For a capacity of 800 students we would need at least an additional 1,760m2 of indoor playground space just to meet the minimum standard, and this is not present in this particular design. The Basketball court could be internal/underground freeing up outdoor green space for planting. The hall could be internal/underground. Squash courts could be underground. There just is not enough running around space in this design and it could easily be built into the design with another floor or two.
3. Some of the 6,240 m2 of playground space is exposed concrete. Primary school students are not permitted run on concrete surfaces. So some of the designed playground space is not currently fit for use.
4. The school hall is 224 m2. About half of this space is terraced. Some of this space will be allocated to a stage. Every school assembly I have attended has a significant parent presence (seated or standing in the space behind the current hall). Major events involve at least one adult per child. The design standard for standing room is 0.3 m2 per person. If the space was flat and ALL the space was used for people standing it would hold 747 people (224/0.3). However maybe 25% of the space will be allocated to the stage, and teacher seating around the perimeter as is the case for the current hall. So the remaining 168 m2 might have a capacity of 560 people standing up (168/0.3). But they will be sitting down, on terraces, sometimes with parents, all of which increase the space requirement. The hall is just not big enough. I am not sure of the exact capacity of the school hall is but it is much less than 800 students and their school entourage. Never mind the parents. We need a hall that can hold the school population and open out to include a significant parent presence on portable chairs for special events.
5. The design does not include enough storage space for a school this size. IMO more of the soft, crumbly sandstone described in the geological report should be dug out for underground storage space. I was also surprised that there was no ground floor car park doubling as a flood barrier. Car parking space could be an earner.
6. There are 30 planned classrooms around 60 m2, which sounded great at first glance. I particularly liked the efficient use of space, wet areas are shared between 2 classes and a lot of rooms open to play areas that double as corridors. On second glance it is not so great. At around 300 students we have 3 Kindergarten classes. The new school will have at least 6 Kindergarten classes at 20 students per class leaving 24 classrooms for the rest of the school. Until the school got too full we had specialized class rooms for music and art. Operating without these specialized spaces is exceeding the school capacity IMO. One of the few advantages of a larger school is specialized classes. In a well designed school I would expect English as a second Language (ESL, SP room 1), Learning Support (SP room2), Special Needs (SP room 3), 3-4 specialized subject classrooms. Perhaps Art, Music, Computers, Science and the canteen doubling for basic Home Economics. Space for individual music lesson/practice. Something like that. So maybe 4 specialized classrooms.
a. If there are 4 specialized classrooms and 800 students, then that is 120 Kindergarden students (6x20 kids) and 680 older students (20x34 kids).
b. If there are 3 specialized classrooms and 800 students, then that is 120 Kindergarden students (6x20 kids) and 680 older students (21x32 kids).
c. If there are 2 specialized classrooms and 800 students, then that is 120 Kindergarden students (6x20 kids) and 680 older students (22x31 kids).
d. If there is 1 specialized classroom and 800 students, then that is 120 Kindergarden students (6x20 kids) and 680 older students (23x30 kids).
e. If there are no specialized classrooms and 800 students, then that is 120 Kindergarden students (6x20 kids) and 680 older students (24x28 kids).
To put this in perspective "Classes that had 13-17 students faired the best, while classes with 22-25 students began to significantly fall behind. " None of the above scenarios are good educational practice. https://www.raymondgeddes.com/determining-the-best-classroom-size
With 4 specialized class rooms there is room or 26 x20 students, 520 student capacity at the school.
With no specialized classrooms 30 x 20 students , 600 students capacity at the school.
With 4 specialized classrooms, 20 student cap for Kindergarden and 30 cap for Grades 1-6 (the public school compromise), the school would have a capacity for 6x20 Kindergarden students (120) and 20 x30 Grades 1-6 (600) leading to a capacity of 720 students at the school.
According to the best educational practice the school capacity is about 520 students; with no specialized classes, 600 students; using the public school compromise and specialized classes, around 720 students.
7. The teaching staff and student body will more than double but the car park almost disappeared. I do not think there is enough space for car parking and waste management on this site. It will be a burden on local parking. There is lots of dirt space available for parking on this site. Sandstone that will almost certainly have to be excavated anyway.
8. The staff room looks awfully small to me.
9. Although I approve of the multiple uses for the site it is not clear to me how this will operate practically as there is not a clear delineation of the areas that will be open to the public after hours.
In summary, the school is not big enough for 800 students. It does not have enough playground space, the hall is too small, there is not enough storage, there is not enough parking space and I believe there are not enough class rooms for best educational practice. The student capacity of a school is set by the lowest design standard number that is achieved. This is a good school for around 520 students if some extra storage and parking can be squeezed in.

Speculation on how the classrooms might be used (below).
Floor Room Name Size Possible Use
2 Special Program 1 51 ESL
2 Special Program 2 36.5 Learning Support
3 Special Program 3 36.5 Special Needs
3 Home Base 1CQ 60.5 Kindergarden
3 Home Base 2CQ 59 Kindergarden
3 Home Base 3CQ 60.5 Kindergarden
3 Home Base 4CQ 60.5 Kindergarden
3 Home Base 5Q 60 Music
2 Home Base 6Q 62 Kindergarden
2 Home Base 7Q 61.5 Kindergarden
2 Home Base 8K 61 Art
2 Home Base 9 60 Year 1
2 Home Base 10 61 Year 1
2 Home Base 11 59.5 Year 1
2 Home Base 12 59.5 Year 2
2 Home Base 13Q 56.5 Year 2
2 Home Base 14 59.5 Year 2
2 Home Base 15 60 Year 3
2 Home Base 16 59 Year 3
2 Home Base 17 60 Year 3
1 Home Base 18Q 59.5 Year 6
1 Home Base 19Q 60 Year 6
1 Home Base 20Q 62 Year 6
1 Home Base 21Q 60 Year 5/6
1 Home Base 22 59.5 Year 5
1 Home Base 23 59 Year 5
1 Home Base 24 60 Year 5
1 Home Base 25 59.5 Science (gas supply, solvents and acids storage cupboards)
1 Home Base 26Q 56.6 Year 4/5
G Home Base 27 59.5 Year 4
G Home Base 28 60 Year 4
G Home Base 29 59 Year 4
G Home Base 30 60 Information Technology (computers etc)
Canteen Home Economics
? Individual on site Music Lessons
Hall Choir and Band rehearsals
? Instrument storage
Basket Ball court Dance (as the current Hall design does not have much flat space)

See attached submission.

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Please refer to the attached file -
Objections - Ultimo Public School

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