Melton Secondary College is busy planning important upgrades after $8.87 million was allocated for the school in the state budget.
The funding will go towards rebuilding the block T classroom building, upgrading the soccer pitch and building a new, separate rugby pitch.
Melton Secondary College principal Kathryn Sobey said it “feels wonderful to have the funding locked in”.
“This funding represented the commencement of the first stage of our new masterplans coming to life. This is something that many, many community members have worked on over the past decade. It’s great to see this work finally starting to build momentum,“ she said.
“The new STEM block will be the first stage of the master planning implementation. The whole plan is designed to provide open flowing spaces to facilitate movement of our student body as they go about their learning.“
Melton Secondary College sport enhancement coordinator Tim Condon said that the school started a rugby academy at the beginning of 2022, and a specialised rugby pitch will be a “huge draw card” for the school.
The academy works in partnership with Academy Movement, Rugby Victoria, and the Melbourne Rebels Rugby Union team, and delivers rugby training to students, as well as environment for education and career pathway support.
“We’ve found that by engaging the students and using rugby as a hook we’ve engaged a lot of students… [the students] are improving their GPAs, attendance, behaviour and learning,” he said.
“At the moment they’ve been playing on an oval with no specific line markings, and it means they can get into more specific training.
“It’s exciting times, there’s huge opportunities in the next 10 years with rugby. Having a field on our school grounds will help the growth and developments of students in the area.”
Liam McNally
