Alamanda K-9 College principal Lyn Jobson has so many students enrolled at her school that even she struggles to pinpoint the precise number.

“It’s about 3300 this year,” she said.

Wyndham mum Eliza Berry with her children, Zoe, 12, Amelie, 13, and Edward, 6, who know all about the overcrowding of schools in the rapidly growing region.Credit:Simon Schluter

Alamanda opened in 2013 with a few hundred students and has rapidly grown into one of the biggest single-campus schools in Victoria.

The extraordinary demand for a place at the government school in the south-western suburb of Point Cook has forced Ms Jobson to go to unusual lengths to keep it running in an orderly way.

There are seven separate timetables for recess and lunch breaks, so that children have enough space to play in, and students in years 7 to 9 start and finish one hour later than primary school students.

The staggered start and finish times were brought in to alleviate gridlock in the surrounding streets at drop-off and pick-up times, Ms Jobson said.

Alamanda College in Point Cook will have about 3300 students up to year 9 when the school year starts next week. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui

But it created a new problem for families with multiple siblings across primary and secondary levels, prompting the school to introduce its own “study hall” program, so those children could be supervised outside of hours.

“You’re all the time putting in atypical stop-gap types of programs to try and make things work as best they can,” Ms Jobson said.

As enrolments soar, Alamanda’s most urgent problem is a squeeze on open space. The principal’s favoured solution, recently submitted to the state government for funding, is to build a three-storey building for secondary students.

The vertical school model is generally used for inner-urban schools, but Ms Jobson said there was simply no more room for single-level classrooms.

“We really can’t just keep putting up portables on the site. The little bit of land that’s there for the kids to play on is being taken up.”

Alamanda’s growing pains are an extreme example of a common problem among schools in Wyndham City, one of Melbourne’s most heavily populated urban growth corridors.

The region has by far the highest number of enrolled students per government school of any municipality in Victoria, with an average of 983 students at its 37 government schools.

The average number of students per school across greater Melbourne is 554.

Analysis by Wyndham City found school enrolments leapt ahead of forecasts because planners failed to foresee an increase in housing density.

In budgeting for new schools, state government planners assumed Wyndham would maintain a housing density level of 12 to 15 dwellings per hectare, but recent developments have added 18 to 20 homes per hectare, a council report found.

The report predicts Wyndham will be six schools short of what the municipality needs by 2031, with a need for three extra primary schools, two secondary schools and a special school.

Wyndham mayor Peter Maynard said a number of new schools had opened in Wyndham in recent years, with more to come. He said the City was grateful for this, but its report clearly demonstrated that more investment and a longer-term plan was needed to overcome the forecast shortage of schools.

“Our classrooms are already overcrowded and bursting at the seams,” Cr Maynard said.

Point Cook single mother of three Eliza Berry said there was a desperate need for more schools in Wyndham.

The 39-year-old works full-time and has her two eldest children enrolled at separate schools, not by choice, but because her local school, Saltwater P-9 College, had not built its secondary school facilities when her daughter Amelie started year 7 last year. Instead, she enrolled her at Alamanda.

Ms Berry said she believes Wyndham has been left behind, with an influx of new residents but not enough infrastructure or schools to support them.

Our classrooms are already overcrowded and bursting at the seams

“We only have one local high school up to year 9. Even if they start building new schools now it feels too late,” she said.

Ms Berry’s youngest child, Edward, will start prep at Saltwater this year when the college accepts its first intake of year 7 students. She hoped all her kids could go to the same school.

“I would love it if my local school could open schooling up to year 9,” Ms Berry said.

“It definitely would have alleviated a lot of the logistical issues.”

An Andrews government spokesperson said the government had opened eight schools in Wyndham since 2018 and planned to build five more.

“We’ve also invested $74.3 million to upgrade seven existing schools in Wyndham to make sure everyone in Melbourne’s outer-west has access to great local schools, close to home,” the spokesperson said, adding that the need for new schools was reviewed every year using detailed demographic modelling.

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