Visit a high school in New South Wales where the government has decided to take away two classrooms because the number of students has dropped.


SARAH SCHOFIELD: School's only been back for a few weeks but, with student numbers now locked in, the Department of Education has been able to inspect Taree High School and determine it's over-resourced by two demountables. This year there are 964 students attending Taree High. To keep the buildings, it needed 1020, so the school is short by 56 students.

Students on the representative council didn't see it the same way. Last week, when they were told the buildings were going, they wrote an open letter to the media, which said: "Statistics give a one-dimensional view. How can someone else use them to show what is best for our entire school and community, without knowing or caring about our current situation?

We are not asking for more resources or any new buildings, merely that they leave in place those that have long been part of our flourishing school community."

So then, what is the story behind the statistics, and is there any flexibility in the department's formula?

AMY MINETT: The two demountable rooms we're going to lose are P14, a specialist art room and the Aboriginal resource room, better known as the Koori room.

SARAH SCHOFIELD: On the whole school site, there is only two demountable buildings. The rest is bricks and mortar. If the two rooms are taken away, there will be a flow on effect.

Classes which are held in the specialist art room would have to be moved into this year 12 study area, and the HSC students would lose their space.

We feel that the flexibility of having two extra demountables has a great impact on the success of the students coming through the school.

ANDREW CAPPIE-WOOD: Now we're sort of saying, "Well, hang on, we need to talk about this more closely." Certainly one of the demountables is going, that's understood by - by the kids, but we're doing it in such a way that - that there's going to be work - work already planned for and under way to make improvements to the rest of the school, so that the removal of that demountable won't have an impact upon them.

SARAH SCHOFIELD: The work will involve converting the year 12 common room into a shared space. Two-thirds of the room will be used as a visual arts classroom and one-third for an HSC study area. As for the Koori resource room, the department says it never wanted to close it down, and that it would like to find a permanent space for it within the school grounds.

ANDREW CAPPIE-WOOD: What we want to do is engage with the Aboriginal community, engage with the school community and the leadership, including those great kids, about sort of saying, "Are there - are there ways of having a win-win out of this?"

SARAH SCHOFIELD: Both outcomes aren't exactly what the students were hoping for, but they realise they won on a front they weren't expecting.

AMY MINETT: It's - it's a great achievement, for a little country school who doesn't get much attention, for the big wigs to be listening to us, and letting us have our say just gives us a great feeling of pride, that we're actually being listened to.