St Gregory’s College Junior School is innovative and contemporary in design, facilitating the latest developments in Teaching and Learning for Primary Schools, evoking a safe, inviting and playful environment to help the children learn and grow, suited to Primary-aged students and not reflective of conventional and institutional school design. This encourages children to feel “comfortable” within their schooling environment, stimulate their imaginations and encourage learning and creativity.
The school is located within a landscape consisting predominantly of playing fields and open space and designed to be of a scale that relates to the breadth of the landscape. Colour is introduced to complement the landscape whilst providing visual stimulus appropriate for the young population inhabiting the school.
Open play space is protected from prevailing SW winds by the 2-storey building on the west and the retention of large established Eucalyptus along the south sides of the site.
Administration, Hall and OOSH facilities are set back from the street resulting in a landscaped frontage with the student playground screened from street-related activities. The main entrance is well defined and positioned to be unambiguously clear to any visitor. The compact site planning enables child safety issues to be successfully addressed as the design results in a very simple “lock-down” should an emergency arise.
The design embodies current practice for stage-based Teaching and Learning, with facilities that accommodate the needs of both individual classroom teaching or the open space required for collaborative learning settings in a group teaching environment. Learning spaces extend to the east and west of a north-south running spine which houses the Resource Centre, conceived as the true “heart” of the school. The future growth to four streams will see the extension of the learning resource spine and further learning hubs.
The School plan is a virtual journey of learning from K to Year 6, visually enhanced by imaginative use of furniture, “tree like” structures that reflect surroundings, forest murals, etc., all of which assist in stimulating Learning whilst also blurring the relationship between internal and external environments.