Through a students eyes

by Ahmed Hassan

I’m a new student and my experience in this new foundation is pretty average. Personally if I had a choice to stay in Reservoir High or University High I would choose Reservoir. The environments are cleaner, they have more space and also started building new facilities. For example at Reservoir High, there was so much space. My friends and I could be in the middle of the school yard, talking, yet the closest other person from my friend group would be 400 meters away from us. Not to say that University High must have that amount of area, but it feels more of a safe place to be during a pandemic which is highly contagious. University high is the total opposite, being packed in the school yard, people being extremely close by which isn’t only annoying, but it's also violating the social distancing rules that's going on in the pandemic. This school has been labeled as “the best school in Victoria”. Yet has many problems which leads to it being average (In my opinion), yet has potential to be a top school. First off, University High has 1750 attending students  and as years go by the population gets higher and higher, most likely in the next 2-3 years the school will have a population of 2000 students, which most likely won't be enough space for that amount of people. Even though they are spending their earnings on facilities, where is the space? 

Uni high’s address is 77 Story St, Parkville VIC 3052, whilst being in a compact area because it's near the central city, but still that's no reason for the fact it's too tiny for that amount of people. The average school length is 8000 square meters. 50% of it being used in classrooms and other facilities while the rest of the space should be spent on open areas. In my calculations being a part of this school for over 1 year I have calculated that 71% of the total amount of area has been spent on buildings including the Elizabeth Blackburn School of Science (EBSS), located in the far corner of the school. Then that leaves the rest of the area in between the buildings and the oval. The oval is quite big but it isn't enough for people to be socially distant or practice covid safety rules. 

The main areas where most people struggle due to crowded areas are located in the lockers, Canteen, corridors & staircases. After each bell or start of class time/dismissal the amount of people that rush down the stairs is insane, the majority of it being the main staircase which leads you to the 200s and 300s. The other part of the school is the Canteen, which is pretty reasonable since most canteens are crowded normally. The hallways of the school are also another issue, they are too narrow and are like the width of 2-4 m. Now here is the real question. How are you supposed to accommodate more than 1800 students yet have tiny corridors? It's not comfortable to be pushing people or being pushed by people just to get to your classroom. Talking about classrooms, most of them are fine, the only problem is that we need more classrooms, since the school is increasing its attendance per year. This year 1750 students are attending, which is 2.5x more than the average school population. With that much number of people increasing per year we would need more infrastructure within this schools department which would help accommodate more students who will attend in the following years. 

Now we know the main problems, the causes of them all we need is a solution. Personally I would say make a second campus. It's better, more efficient, and isn't as much of a struggle as trying to build more buildings in an already cramped space, also it's better because when building more classrooms in Uni High it restricts more space so people can’t access some areas due to the construction. It might take some time but it would be useful for the next upcoming years. It doesn’t have to be big and large but it can be a building that has spare classrooms that’s relatively close to University High, somewhat similar to Trinity College which helped keep the year 9s after the electrical fire that broke out mid holidays in early 2021. It can also help keep the year 11s and 12s when they have their VCE exams or final exams due to noises that could distract the students that partake in the exam. 

There are lots of ways this school can improve, many small and some big but personally this might not be that much of a big deal, but would be an issue the school would face in the near future.