By Russell Bennett
“The last time I was at Upwey High was late last year during one of our community cabinet visits. At that point, stage three works had been completed and it’s great to be here today to see all the new facilities up and running,” said the Premier.
Principal Tom Daly said his school needed upgrading in order to provide its students with the best possible learning environment.
“Stage three has seen the refurbishment of our multi-storey building which was built back in 1937. It has also seen the development of our Year 9 ‘Aurora Centre’ and our own presentation space,” he said.
More than 60 laptops have been provided to Year 8 and 9 students alone, indicating the extent of the improvements.
“They’ve been introduced as part of the open classrooms scheme,” Mr Daly said.
“We deeply appreciate the funding provided by the government and we’ve also received help from countless community partnerships.”
The State Government funding came as part of ‘The Victorian Schools Plan’ – a 10-year commitment to ‘modernise or rebuild all Victorian schools.’
Mr Daly said a number of the school’s most significant programs were helped by the modernisation.
“Our arts, library, and science-technology programs were all rejuvenated with funding from the first two stages (of the Victorian Schools Plan),” he said.
“A number of our classrooms have been opened up and they’re now highly supportive of the use of technology.”
Boosts have been given to departments, like visual arts, which are not normally associated with information technology.
Each year, the top 50 arts students from across the state are invited to show their work in Federation Square as part of the ‘Top Arts’ exhibition.
Upwey High’s arts program was injected with much needed funding prior to 2008 and since it was provided with technology updates like the installation of ‘PhotoShop’ on class computers, three of its students have exhibited at ‘Top Arts’.
Monbulk MP James Merlino said the upgrades had “made an already strong school even stronger.”
