The new Catholic Primary School in Harrison is swarming with builders and tradies for last three weeks of January in a frantic dash to have it ready for the start of school.

It is looking tight!

The rot seems to be setting in already for Canberra’s newest school.

Seemingly poor planning has left Harrison School chronically short of space for the number of new enrolments it is receiving.

Just two weeks before the 2010 school year started, several ‘demountable’ classrooms were delivered. And as we all know, demountables very seldom ever get ‘demounted’! Any of us who as kids were unfortunate enough to be taught in demountables froze through winters and wilted through summers, and we know those same buildings are still there decades later.

Harrison's problems continue, with Years 5 and 6 classes being told just before school ended in December that they will be without their own classrooms when school starts—they’ll be stuck in the library for all of the first term. But GunSmoke understands this may drag on for considerably longer.

The ACT Government would say that the rapid increase in land releases is to blame, but this has been planned and building for two years. Surely these two departments of the same government could have done some simple maths and then talked to each other?

The solution to this problem is to use the ‘Community Facility’ zoned land in Franklin to build a junior school. This would take the pressure off Harrison for those critical early few years, and provide Franklin families with a school within easy walking distance for the younger kids. There is ample land available there to provide for co-located pre-school and childcare centre too.

'Alexander Bunyip' from the famous children’s book The Monster that ate Canberra will be immortalised in bronze outside the new Gungahlin Library.

The Gungahlin Community Council's campaign for a public art piece recognising the popular children's book by Michael Salmon has been successful, with ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope approving the idea for a sculpture.

Michael Salmon was visiting Harrison School on Friday 3 September, and helped us announce the successful outcome.

This is the book that introduced many Canberra children to reading, by allowing us to relate the book back to local monuments we knew so well.

GCC suggested such a statue would be ideally located outside the new Gungahlin Library currently under construction on the corner of Hibberson and Gozzard Streets in the Gungahlin town centre.

Registrations are now being taken for the 2009 Read Around Canberra Program which will be led by Canberra writer, teacher and freelance editor Susan Hampton.

Susan's book The Kindly Ones won the ArtsACT Judith Wright Award in 2006 and was shortlisted for the NSW and Victoria Premiers' awards for poetry, the Age Book of the Year Award, and the ACT Book of the Year Award.

Read Around Canberra groups have been organised for:

• Dickson Library on the first Tuesday of the month commencing 3 February, 7.30-9.30pm,
• Kippax Library on the first Wednesday of the month commencing 4 February, 7.30-9.30pm,
• Civic Library on the first Thursday of the month commencing 5 February, 7.30-9.30pm, and
• Woden Library on the first Saturday of the month commencing 7 February at 2-4pm.

Books for 2009 cover a range of themes, styles and nationalities, and include:

• The Gathering by Anne Enright,
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy,
• Home by Marilynne Robinson,
• The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville, and 
• The Death of Ivan Illyich by Leo Tolstoy.

For full details and a booking form, visit the library web site. Sign up now so you don't miss out. $130 for the full year (ten sessions).

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Amid a discussion about big expensive public art pieces, a comment by new GCC executive member Estelle Sydney-Smith got us thinking - that we should have a statue of The Monster That Ate Canberra.

What a great sculpture piece that would be for out the front of the new Gungahlin library!

Michael Salmon's book on Alexander Bunyip going around eating up Canberra Icons has been a great contributor to getting Canberra kids reading.

And with the "double yum gigantic ice cream sundae" Telstra Tower almost visible in a straight line south of Gozzard Street (certainly visible from upstairs), the scene as Alexander devours the tower would give it some Gungahlin relevance.

With all the serious, obscure or controversial public art around lately, maybe a bit of fun would be great change?

The Gungahlin College has moved a step closer to realisation with advertising appearing this week inviting comment from potential tenderers prior to the Request for tender being issued.

The ad stated the scope as:

• senior college buildings (including a gymnasium and theatre)
• Canberra Institute of Technology facility
• community library (as a joint-use facility with the college)
• external courts
• stormwater work (including a retention pond).

GCC Vice President Jonathon Reynolds is due to attend the next meeting of the College Design Working Group in two weeks.

Meanwhile, the recent newspaper article on the artist's impression of the college included a comment about it opening "late 2010"that slipped by us. Our understanding has always been that it would open in time for the 2010 school year. Thank you mark Drummond for picking it up - we've got an email in to Education Minister Andrew Barr to find out what's going on.

UPDATE

Minister Barr has responded:

Alan

The Notice of intention to tender was in the Canberra Times on Saturday. The opening date will depend on the responses to the tender.  I hope there will be strong interest in the construction industry to deliver the project ASAP!

Will keep you advised of progress.

Regards
Andrew

So that's a maybe...let's hope the tendering people get motoring on this, as a mid-year changeover would be messy for everyone - teachers, students, families...

UPDATE

The college project manager has now advised:

The college will be completed by the end of November 2010.  As this is too late for students to attend in 2010, the college will be open for students at the start of the school year in 2011.

Education Minister Andrew Barr has released the first pictures of the Gungahlin college, to be built on Hibberson Street opposite the Raiders Club.

As Jonathon Reynolds explained a couple of months ago, the new college (to open for the 2010 school year) will adopt a new model of pedagogy. As this picture shows, the buildings themselves will also add a quality and style not previously seen in Gungahlin's main street.

The Gungahlin Community Council continues to be involved in the college design working group.

You can also get a glimpse of the town square and stage area that dominate the Hibberson-Gozzard Streets intersection.

In August 2007, GCC agreed to support Burgmann Anglican School's campaign for a solution to the traffic problems faced by parents outside the school every day. Clearly it was a problem that needed to be resolved before someone was killed.

Nine months later, in the ACT Government's 2008 Budget, a sum of $500,000 was allocated to resolve these traffic issues!

Burgmann Principal Paul Browning has written to GCC thanking us for our role in the win:

"Thank you for all the hard work and time you have put into lobbying for this wonderful outcome."

The latest stakeholder workshop for the new Gungahlin College was held in late April, with GCC represented by GCC Vice President Jonathon Reynolds.

Although we can't reveal the plans as yet, the college and library precinct designs will be cutting edge, not only in the innovative 5-star energy efficient design and new facilities it will bring to the town centre, but for students it will offer a new model of pedagogy within the ACT college system.

In February GCC proposed the idea of a medium scale "solar farm" for Gungahlin.

As part of our submission on Mick Gentleman's Solar Feed-in Tariff Bill, we proposed that:

"...a community cooperative could be established to allow people to invest smaller amounts than would be required for a complete installation of their own. What we picture is a medium-scale solar farm, with small-scale wind generation, and space to add other developing technologies, located somewhere highly visible like adjacent to the Federal Highway in Kenny. Residents could buy shares in that generator up to a maximum value of say $5,000, thereby providing a way for people with less financial resources to 'opt in'."

Perhaps the ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope thought it was a good idea? A month later, and we have this article in the Canberra Times:

Harrison made national news this week, and those of us who live here didn't even know it was on...

The Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard needed a building site on which to make an announcement on a new vocational training scheme, Where else are you guaranteed a building site close to Parliament House? Gungahlin of course.

The DPM brought a media circus with her, and the result was plenty of national papers featuring an unknown pair of legs upon scaffolding in Harrison!

We've had a win with the location of the childcare centre we've been campaigning for in Harrison - it will now be located much more appropriately to a site between the Harrison School and the proposed Catholic primary school. This is a great outcome - precisely what we were hoping for.