At Lucas Primary School in Ballarat, warm, welcoming and engaging learning environments have been carefully crafted to help teachers facilitate continuous, connected and collaborative learning experiences for every child.
The gabled roof of the administration and library building creates a welcoming arrival experience for children and their families as they proceed to their Learning Neighbourhoods, each housing two separate learning communities. These in turn comprise of nine purposefully designed learning settings including; a presentation space, small rooms for meetings and learning support, zones for collaboration, reading nooks, and dedicated spaces for wet and messy activities. These spatially diverse environments permit a wide variety of expressive languages and modes of learning by enabling children and teachers to choose the setting that best suits their needs.
A standalone specialist pavilion with facilities for art, science and food technology is available for the whole school community to use. Critically, it also provides as equitable experience as possible during peak enrolment periods for students working in relocatable buildings, which don’t have integrated specialist facilities. The Specialist Pavilion, the Performing Arts and Physical Education Building, the Library and children’s amenities can all be separately secured if the school wishes to make them available for community events after hours.
Lucas Primary School is one of the New Schools 2020 projects delivered by the Victorian School Building Authority (VSBA), led by Architectus with K2LD and Design Inc.