I have not done a specific school introduction for a while, mostly due to I have not had the chance to collect the information needed. Starting this back up with Mowbray Public School which I manage to find some time to visit on last Sunday. I could not find information on when the Mowbray Public School was established and there seem to be distinctive lack of general information on this school via online searching. This rather unfortunately as I was hoping to get some background information on the school.
Mowbray Public School is located on the Mowbray Road in the suburb of Lane Cove North. North of the Mowbray road belongs to Willoughby council and south of the road is part of the Lane Cove Council. Lane Cove Council recently rezoned pretty much entire section alone the Mowbray road and apartments just spring up like weeds in my garden after a good summer rain. I drove past this section of the road almost weekly and in the space of a few years, the entire southern side of Mowbray road in Lane Cove West is either built, being built or waiting to be built. This, of course, is one of the reasons that Mowbray Public school is undergoing a major expansion.
In 2014 there were 378 students enrolled and compare to 2008’s number of 267 students, this is an increase of 42% over the space of six years. This might sound high, but actually not uncommon in North Shore area. In 2014, 36 per cent of the students in the school are from none English language background. This number actually is fairly consistent over the years, fluctuating between 35 to 41 per cent. This number may rise in the next few years, with a lot of Asian buying in the area in the recent time, a fair number gets pushed over into Mowbray Public School’s catchment due to sky-high property price in Chatswood.
Mowbray Public School does very well academically and consistently ranked as one of the state’s top public school.
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranking | 91 | 212 | 61 | 93 | 72 |
Mowbray Public School Catchment is bounded by Epping road to the south, Pacific High Way to the east, Chatswood golf club, Coolaroo Park to the north and Lane Cove River to the west. A really major expansion for the school is currently underway and proposed to be finished by 2016. The enrolment number is estimated to triple from 360 to 1000. What this means is that it will likely absorb part of the catchment of nearby schools that are currently overcrowded and under stress. Following is the current catchment map, once the new expansion completes, this will probably expand significantly. I will do another post to guess the possible changes in the catchment this will result in. You can search for a particular school or address in the search box in the top right-hand corner of the embedded map or zoom into an area of interest on the map.
The catchment use to be a good mix of multi and single dwellings, however recently following Lane Cove council’s rezoning, apartments are going up in a maddening fashion alone the Mowbray Road. This no doubt contributes to the need to expand the school’s capacity as it will no longer able to deal with the significant increase in population. I drove pass Mowbray Road weekly and it was really interesting to see the progress of the new classrooms close up last weekend. I took a few pictures and it is certainly a massive expansion and definitely the biggest of all the schools I have visited so far. In the following Google Map cut out, I draw out roughly what the new building situates compare to the old set up. The bottom area as marked on the map alone the Mowbray Road is where the new building is going up, essentially all the old classrooms got demolished to make room for it. About 20 new demountables are placed in the northern part of the school as marked on the map. Expect these to be removed once the new classrooms are completed and ready for use.
I quite like the new design, it pretty much maintained all the open space and oval. Public school often utilized for a variety of activities outside of school hours and maintaining these open spaces are very important inside and outside of school hours. The new classrooms look great and I am looking forward to its completion and students moving out of demountables. Due to the mounting pressure with the increase in enrolment, it is rare in North Shore area to maintain such lovely amount of open space which will be great for the community in the long run.
Following is the new classrooms that are under construction.
Following is the lovely existing oval view of demountables are currently up to replace the existing classrooms while the new classrooms are under construction.
As usual contact the school in question or Department of Education for the final confirmation and you can also access the full NSW and Sydney Public School Catchment Map by following this link.
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