Enrolments have far exceeded expectations at The Riverina Anglican College's new junior school as the school enters its second term of operation.
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During the official opening on Thursday morning, principal Paul Humble revealed that when construction was beginning last year, the school community expected to welcome just 40 students through its gates.
Instead, when term 1 commenced in February, 180 students from kindergarten to year 6 walked through the gates.
"At the first stage there was going to be one kindergarten class and then a couple of composite classes [for other year groups]," Mr Humble said.
"I had no doubt that it would be a highly successful school, but for it to be so successful so quickly and to fill all of the grades straight away and have waiting lists across the board, that's just outstanding."
With the first sod having been turned on Monday, it is expected that by October this year, the school will have its stage 2 buildings completed.
Meanwhile, the stage 3 students are aiming to move into their permanent classrooms by November.
At the moment years 3 to 6 students are using the senior school's surplus classrooms.
"We hope to be able to have that so that in the new year we will be taking another three or four streams of classes into the last stage of our junior school," said the school's chairman, Dr Colin May.
The additional classes will bring the junior school's population to 240 students.
Kindergarten, year 1 and year 2 have now been able to move into their classrooms after spending time in the partitioned library due to delays on the completion of their building last term.
Mr Humble described the delay as a "slight hiccup" in the opening of the school, brought on by the pandemic's disruptions.
"They were able to set up in the secondary school the college library for a few days and then move over to here [the junior school building], but I mean as far as the learning was concerned it wasn't interrupted at all," Mr Humble said.
"Then when we got the final approval, it was all hands on deck to move everybody in one afternoon. So one afternoon they finished up in the library, next up next morning they were here."
In the midst of COVID-19 restrictions last year, the school was able to provide contingencies for parents to walk their kindergarten and year 7 students to their classroom on day one.
But without purposed classrooms for the kindergarten students, at that stage, parents were walking their four and five-year-old students into the senior school.
"We've begun to welcome families into the school now on a far more regular basis," Mr Humble said.