Friday, December 30, 2011

Teamwork


This is a fairly nondescript, if not downright ugly, building, but the interesting thing is that it is part of an unusual school arrangement. It's on the shared campus of a government primary school and a Catholic primary school. They each have some distinct buildings of their own, but share a library, hall, computer network, canteen, sports ovals and carpark facilities.

From the Holy Spirit school website:

"Holy Spirit Primary and Gold Creek Primary Schools are the ACT’s first shared facility schools and are located next to one another on a campus in the suburb of Nicholls. Both education systems funded the building of the shared facilities, which are the carpark, the resource centre, canteen, gymnasium and oval.
At present the schools have a growing population. Holy Spirit has Kindergarten to Year 6, while Gold Creek has years Kindergarten to Year 5. Year 6 is accommodated at the secondary site as part of a middle school.

Each school is typical of other schools in their respective systems. What makes these schools different from the norm is that the children are not segregated and can mix in a variety of ways. They play together in the yard and on the play equipment, they attend a number of shared assemblies each term, and on occasion they share educational activities. Staff from both schools also mix. They share playground supervision, joint staff meetings each term, shared professional development and weekly morning teas.

Both education systems provide funding for equipment and resources for the shared facilities, such as computers and books for the library and gymnastics equipment for the gymnasium. The gymnasium, library and canteen are much larger than would be found in single new schools, because both education systems have contributed towards their building costs."

From the viewpoint above, look left and you'll see the main entrance to Gold Creek School:


And opposite, to the right from the original viewpoint, is Holy Spirit primary school administration block:

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