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.

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