As we approach the inaugural St Andrew's Giving Day, it has been wonderful to hear the conversations around our campus about the notion of giving back. As I shared with our College and House Captains at lunch this week, St Andrew's has a strong focus on providing opportunities for students who might not otherwise be able to attend our school through our means tested scholarship program.

At the same time, we are committed to the next stage of the building program which includes the Performing Arts Precinct and then our Future Learning building. Part of our Giving Day is asking our community to also consider supporting our building projects as both this and donations to our scholarship fund are tax deductible. The College does receive some support from the Federal and State Governments for our capital projects; however the majority of the costs come from our own operating surplus and borrowings. With this in mind, every donation to our Building Fund simply helps the College borrow less and ultimately our ability to bring projects online a little earlier.

The Performing Arts Precinct has been delayed for about six months as the College manages the final details of the design and escalating costs. Our aim has been to find those savings that don’t impact the overall purpose and aesthetic of the building. This has been achieved and we are now refining those plans, ready to start construction before the end of the year.

This has been one of the longest development programs of any so far at the College and simply reflects the complexity of what we are trying to do, manage the budget and provide the quality we now expect in our built form. At the same time, we have finalised our Master Plan which sees some exciting developments as we plan our new STEAM precinct (FLC in render below) to the north of the current secondary school and re-position our Upper Primary students adjacent to the Learning Hub. The College Council has a strong capital program over the next 15 years which sees us refurbish some of our earlier buildings, remove all of the current demountable buildings, develop purpose built sporting facilities at the Rec Centre, all while enhancing the outdoor spaces for all our students.

What you see below is the current Master Plan which is guiding the Executive team, our College Council and our new Principal, Ms Karen Gorrie in the years ahead. We have been fortunate to have worked closely with Cox Architects who are leaders in the educational and commercial space. In addition we have engaged Vee Landscape Architects who have developed a cross-campus approach to how the outdoor environment supports learning and creates spaces for all members of our community.

A copy of this render will be available in our Administration building for the information of our community.

Performing Arts Precinct

Many of these images have already been shared, but I thought it might help our community further understand what we are developing. The first image is our new Administration Building at the entrance to the campus. As part of the construction the current demountable Administration building will become the site office for our builders. As we finalise the design, some aspects of the landscape and hardscape may change, but we are so excited by what this facility will do, not only to support our growing music and drama programs, but it provides more space in our secondary campus. By Music and Drama moving up to this new facility, we gain some much needed classroom and office spaces in Secondary and we can begin to unpack some of the excess of classes we currently hold in the Learning Hub and other spaces around the campus.