The school has been allocated an as-yet unclear amount for upgrades that principal Sandra Hiscock expects will include “two new laboratories for the school, and four classrooms that will focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)”.

“So, there’ll be four rooms upstairs and the science labs downstairs and then facilities for video-conferencing for our senior students,” she said.

“We certainly needed more laboratories, science is … very big in our school. And we also teach science to Crookwell [and] Boorowa.

“[It’s] senior science, so physics, chemistry, across those schools as well, hence why there’ll be a video-conferencing facility in the new building.”

Principal Hiscock hopes the improvements will allow more local students to continue their secondary education in Yass, rather than having to seek it “across the border” in Canberra. 

“We’ve been able to stem that growth into Canberra a lot more because of the facilities we can offer students now,” she said.

“Kids no longer need to go to Canberra to get those facilities. We have a trade skills centre that can offer Certificate III in nine different courses.”

She said there were “a number of families” moving from Canberra schools back to Yass High School in the near future, an influx she said was “all good, but we [the school] have to keep it going”.

Yass was a growing town, she said, and the school needed to continue its expansion if it was going to keep pace with an increase in students. 

Growth is an emphasis for many schools across NSW. Education Minister Rob Stokes said schools were expected to enrol 164,000 more students by 2031.

Similarly, Principal Hiscock expected that Yass High’s enrolments would increase from roughly 520 students to 600 students over the next 10 years. 

The $4.2 billion upgrades to new and existing projects are scheduled to take place over the next four years in NSW schools.