Update on the Building the Education Revolution (BER) Projects
(Printed in the Bulletin, December 2009)
At the beginning of this year, the Labour Government announced a Stimulus Package for schools. The FRSA applied for the Stimulus Package and received funds for two elements of the available funding, namely National School Pride (NSP) and Primary Schools 21st century (P21).
1. National School Pride (NSP):
The projects under this grant contain: painting of buildings, upgrading of grounds and a power upgrade at Rockingham JCS.
JCCC: Last week we finally could start with the installation of a new shed replacing two old sheds on the campus. Demolition of the old sheds behind the Music house and Support Office will be done during the Summer school holidays. Some classroom renovations are still in progress and most of the buildings have received a new lick of paint. In both Byford and Kelmscott JCS part of the outdoor painting has been finished. Kelmscott JCS also received a shade sail above new playground equipment. The Bunbury JCS has installed a new 6 x 6 meter manual arts shed. In Rockingham JCS a start has been made on the necessary power upgrade, and also renovations on the oval have started.
In total $200,000 will be spent on the various projects for the NSP.
2. Primary School 21st (P21): Under this element of the funding the FRSA received in total $3,111,000, which is only available to Primary Schools. The FRSA plans to build:
a. New Libraries in Byford, Kelmscott & Rockingham JCS
These new buildings will be approximately double the size of the existing libraries. Over the summer holidays we hope to have the drawings available on the FRSA web site. We also plan to work on having a more regular method to update the members on the funding projects (see Building Committee)
b. Multi Purpose Halls (MPH) in Byford, Kelmscott & Rockingham JCS
These buildings will be more or less a carbon copy of each other. The buildings will contain one full indoor soccer court, which can also be used for basketball, netball, badminton and other indoor activities. The annex rooms will hold storage cupboards, toilets and showers. The plan is to build the Byford Hall in the north west corner, the Kelmscott Hall next to the old manual arts shed and the Rockingham Hall between the playground equipment and the oval.
Location plans will be published on the FRSA web site over the holidays.
All planning approvals have been received and we expect that the building licenses will soon be coming through.
Both projects (Libraries and MPH) will be built by Alita Construction. To keep the local community informed, a local Building Committee has been formed. The contact persons for the different catchment areas are:
BJCS: Craig vanderSchaaf and Rainier Kroeze, KJCS: Tim de Vos and Aran Swarts, RJCS: Trevor Bosveld and Rodney Maring. The other members of the Building Committee (BC) are: the builder Alistair Kleyn, Lester Mulder (who has been involved in the design) and Jacques Kortenoeven (FRSA).
The main purpose of the BC will be to liaise with the builder and the Church community. Whilst $3 million is a lot of money, the budget is very tight. Compared to other schools the FRSA will be receiving extremely good value. It means that we will be able to build the facilities with all the basic requirements. Any extras will have to wait or will need to be financed via donations in material, time or financial gifts. Another task of the BC will be to get the community excited and support this project.
There is a contingency placed in the project contract so that the budget will not be overspent.
The builder was hoping to start before Christmas, but time is running out and most likely the official start will be early January 2010. The anticipated building time is between 35 – 40 weeks for all six buildings!
As mentioned earlier, we hope to update you on a more regular basis about the progress of the MPHs and Libraries in future Bulletins and via the FRSA web page.