The Kurrajong Building

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With construction to commence late in 2007, the School Council has planned a new building for the teaching of English, Drama and Christian Studies, as well as a new specialist facility for the Learning Support Department, together with ancillary areas for academic and non-academic staff.

The new building will be located between the Chapel and the McCaskill Music Centre. Kurrajong House and Reed House will be demolished.

A feature of the design is the Architect's success in developing an environmentally-sustainable building, with natural air-flow ventilation; careful attention being paid to provision of natural lighting throughout, and other environmentally sensitive features such as solar-panels on the roof to assist in powering the building, and extensive retention facilities for rain and storm water for recycling for use in cisterns.

CHRISTIAN STUDIES AND THE CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP CENTRE

Barker is a Christian School. In recent years, the School Council has supported an innovative and effective Youth Ministry involving three specialist Christian Youth Workers working alongside the Chaplaincy team to support the School's Christian ministry to young people. Their presence at the School has seen unprecedented growth in the School's Crusader groups, with upwards of 200 students attending weekly meetings of Middle School and Senior School Crusaders, as well as Bible Study and prayer groups through the week.

The new Christian Fellowship Centre will provide flexible and more suitable accommodation for the numbers of students attending, and for the activities involved in the Fellowship programme, with an adjacent outdoor courtyard area, the Peace Cloister, for informal conversation and other activities.

ENGLISH

The new building will provide dedicated spaces for teaching and learning for both Middle School and Senior School English, including 24 class-sized teaching spaces; and two theatres seating 220 and 140 students respectively for lecture-style teaching and presentations to large groups. Seminar and tutorial rooms will provide for the kinds of intensive small-group discussion and project work required now for effective teaching of English within the framework of new syllabuses and courses devised by the NSW Board of Studies. Small group facilities will support extension work for students of all ages, especially Year 12 students preparing Extension 2 projects and research.

Integral to the building's design are facilities for accessing information and communication technology either as part of a class lesson or independently of classroom learning, and include an editing suite for the editing of digital material prepared for submission as part of English-related assessment tasks. All teaching areas will provide access for teachers and students to a full range of information and communication technology including data projectors and smart boards. Accommodation will also include preparation areas for staff use; staff areas for academic and non-academic staff and a dedicated English Resource Room.

DRAMA

The steady growth in the performing arts within the curriculum at Barker is testimony both to the quality of teaching and learning programmes in Drama at the School, and to the recognition amongst young people of the place of the arts in a balanced curriculum.

The new building provides four large teaching studios for Drama, and four small-group rehearsal studios for senior students to prepare their individual and small-group performances that are integral to the assessment programme in Drama. Workshop spaces will also be available for students who elect to submit Stage Design as part of their senior programme.

The new building contains two theatres, one suitable for mounting workshop performances or small productions, and the other having a performance space larger than Leslie Hall. Both theatres will be fully equipped for theatrical lighting and sound. The BCMA has in fact pledged funding for the fit-out of the smaller theatre, which will be known as the BCMA Theatre.

Adjoining rehearsal spaces and properly equipped backstage areas will provide a significant augmentation of facilities for preparing and presenting student drama in the school.

LEARNING SUPPORT

Barker has an enviable reputation for its inclusivity of students whose learning is disadvantaged by specific learning difficulties, by previously interrupted schooling, or by disability of various kinds. A dedicated team of Learning Support professionals is engaged at the School in supporting and assisting these students through a variety of individual and small-group strategies and programmes.

The new building provides a specialist facility for Learning Support, with flexible learning spaces and a number of spaces for individual and small group work. Proper staff facilities are incorporated into the Centre, with adequate facilities for intervention programmes by visiting specialists. The location of the department adjacent to the English department will provide significant professional and collegial synergies between classroom English teachers and Learning Support Staff, recognising that the clearest manifestations of debilitating learning difficulties often emerge in English classrooms.

In summary, the new building enables the School Council to replace a number of sub-standard teaching and learning spaces for at least three major departments in the School as well as taking out of circulation eleven existing classrooms which are manifestly unsuitable for proper and adequate delivery of courses and programmes in a school preparing its young people for adult life in the 21st Century.