Latest news with #NSWEducationDepartment
The Advertiser
04-07-2025
- Business
- The Advertiser
Site preparations for new Huntlee high school to begin as stage two awaits approvals
The first site preparation works for a new high school at Huntlee, promised in 2023 as part of a state significant development of thousands of new homes there, began this week after the developer was granted initial approvals. It comes as stage two of the Huntlee development, which will mean some 5000 new homes at Branxton, awaits approval and funding from last month's state budget. The public primary and high school in the rapidly growing area will serve the communities of Branxton, Huntlee and North Rothbury. It is slated for Reading Road and Personia Boulevard, with the primary school to include a pre-school. Huntlee is planned to house 20,000 people. The 2021 Census showed the areas population had grown from 900 to 2300 in five years. Classes are expected to begin in 2028, a spokesman for the NSW Education Department said. Testing and investigations began in May to inform the schools' designs, which remain in development. Once planning approval is received and a contractor is onboard, construction work will begin. "The project is currently in the planning and design stages. We will keep the community informed as the project progresses," the spokesman said. In the 2024-2025 budget, the state announced plans to create 100 new co-located pre-schools across the state and set aside $630,000 to deliver a kindergarten to year 8 school in Huntlee. Across the state, the government will invest $9 billion in school infrastructure over four years for new and upgraded schools. New schools were promised by the Labor state government in 2023 after parents in the burgeoning suburban hub raised concerns that the estate lacked needed facilities. "We were told Huntlee is this wonderful new town designed for 20,000 people, which is all well and good, but this town and its residents deserve education facilities," parent Lee-Anne Moore told the Cessnock Advertiser in 2023. "Given Huntlee will be home to 20,000 people, a similar size to Singleton, we need these education facilities, first a high school and then a primary school, to be built, and built now." The NSW Department of Planning was contacted for comment. The first site preparation works for a new high school at Huntlee, promised in 2023 as part of a state significant development of thousands of new homes there, began this week after the developer was granted initial approvals. It comes as stage two of the Huntlee development, which will mean some 5000 new homes at Branxton, awaits approval and funding from last month's state budget. The public primary and high school in the rapidly growing area will serve the communities of Branxton, Huntlee and North Rothbury. It is slated for Reading Road and Personia Boulevard, with the primary school to include a pre-school. Huntlee is planned to house 20,000 people. The 2021 Census showed the areas population had grown from 900 to 2300 in five years. Classes are expected to begin in 2028, a spokesman for the NSW Education Department said. Testing and investigations began in May to inform the schools' designs, which remain in development. Once planning approval is received and a contractor is onboard, construction work will begin. "The project is currently in the planning and design stages. We will keep the community informed as the project progresses," the spokesman said. In the 2024-2025 budget, the state announced plans to create 100 new co-located pre-schools across the state and set aside $630,000 to deliver a kindergarten to year 8 school in Huntlee. Across the state, the government will invest $9 billion in school infrastructure over four years for new and upgraded schools. New schools were promised by the Labor state government in 2023 after parents in the burgeoning suburban hub raised concerns that the estate lacked needed facilities. "We were told Huntlee is this wonderful new town designed for 20,000 people, which is all well and good, but this town and its residents deserve education facilities," parent Lee-Anne Moore told the Cessnock Advertiser in 2023. "Given Huntlee will be home to 20,000 people, a similar size to Singleton, we need these education facilities, first a high school and then a primary school, to be built, and built now." The NSW Department of Planning was contacted for comment. The first site preparation works for a new high school at Huntlee, promised in 2023 as part of a state significant development of thousands of new homes there, began this week after the developer was granted initial approvals. It comes as stage two of the Huntlee development, which will mean some 5000 new homes at Branxton, awaits approval and funding from last month's state budget. The public primary and high school in the rapidly growing area will serve the communities of Branxton, Huntlee and North Rothbury. It is slated for Reading Road and Personia Boulevard, with the primary school to include a pre-school. Huntlee is planned to house 20,000 people. The 2021 Census showed the areas population had grown from 900 to 2300 in five years. Classes are expected to begin in 2028, a spokesman for the NSW Education Department said. Testing and investigations began in May to inform the schools' designs, which remain in development. Once planning approval is received and a contractor is onboard, construction work will begin. "The project is currently in the planning and design stages. We will keep the community informed as the project progresses," the spokesman said. In the 2024-2025 budget, the state announced plans to create 100 new co-located pre-schools across the state and set aside $630,000 to deliver a kindergarten to year 8 school in Huntlee. Across the state, the government will invest $9 billion in school infrastructure over four years for new and upgraded schools. New schools were promised by the Labor state government in 2023 after parents in the burgeoning suburban hub raised concerns that the estate lacked needed facilities. "We were told Huntlee is this wonderful new town designed for 20,000 people, which is all well and good, but this town and its residents deserve education facilities," parent Lee-Anne Moore told the Cessnock Advertiser in 2023. "Given Huntlee will be home to 20,000 people, a similar size to Singleton, we need these education facilities, first a high school and then a primary school, to be built, and built now." The NSW Department of Planning was contacted for comment. The first site preparation works for a new high school at Huntlee, promised in 2023 as part of a state significant development of thousands of new homes there, began this week after the developer was granted initial approvals. It comes as stage two of the Huntlee development, which will mean some 5000 new homes at Branxton, awaits approval and funding from last month's state budget. The public primary and high school in the rapidly growing area will serve the communities of Branxton, Huntlee and North Rothbury. It is slated for Reading Road and Personia Boulevard, with the primary school to include a pre-school. Huntlee is planned to house 20,000 people. The 2021 Census showed the areas population had grown from 900 to 2300 in five years. Classes are expected to begin in 2028, a spokesman for the NSW Education Department said. Testing and investigations began in May to inform the schools' designs, which remain in development. Once planning approval is received and a contractor is onboard, construction work will begin. "The project is currently in the planning and design stages. We will keep the community informed as the project progresses," the spokesman said. In the 2024-2025 budget, the state announced plans to create 100 new co-located pre-schools across the state and set aside $630,000 to deliver a kindergarten to year 8 school in Huntlee. Across the state, the government will invest $9 billion in school infrastructure over four years for new and upgraded schools. New schools were promised by the Labor state government in 2023 after parents in the burgeoning suburban hub raised concerns that the estate lacked needed facilities. "We were told Huntlee is this wonderful new town designed for 20,000 people, which is all well and good, but this town and its residents deserve education facilities," parent Lee-Anne Moore told the Cessnock Advertiser in 2023. "Given Huntlee will be home to 20,000 people, a similar size to Singleton, we need these education facilities, first a high school and then a primary school, to be built, and built now." The NSW Department of Planning was contacted for comment.
The Age
08-05-2025
- Politics
- The Age
Head of NSW schools agency told staff to ‘change' demographic data, inquiry told
The former head of the NSW Education Department's school building unit allegedly instructed a data expert to manipulate demographic data to 'make it a higher number', an instruction she told a corruption inquiry she understood to be about securing more budget funding. The Independent Commission Against Corruption heard evidence on Thursday that the former head of School Infrastructure NSW, Anthony Manning, told an employee to change the data prepared for a pre-budget submission to the then-Coalition government. 'He was quite direct, he said change it to be higher,' she said. The state's corruption watchdog is holding a public inquiry into the conduct of Manning, the chief executive of the department's school infrastructure unit from 2017 until last year. Jannatun Haque, a senior data expert in the department who worked under Manning, described her former boss as 'very Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'. 'If you were on his good side [he was] very positive and if it was something he disagreed with you, it was brutal,' she said. Loading She described a meeting with Manning in 2021 in which they discussed the agency's projections on school-age population in which he was unhappy with falling population data. She said Manning told her to 'change' the figures before a pre-budget submission. When she refused to change the data, telling Manning 'we can't just amend those numbers', he told her 'we will find someone who can do what we want them to do'.
