ARARAT West Primary School students have moved into their new classrooms nearly nine months after a devastating fire.
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Six classrooms, learning spaces and an art room were lost to the fire that tore through the Kneebone Street site on October 28 last year.
Students moved into the new classrooms on Monday.
Ararat West Primary School principal Terry Keilar said students had been waiting anxiously to move into their new building. He said they were excited when the school finally got the tick of approval to move into the new space.
Mr Keilar said the school had replaced the spaces that had been lost to the fire, but made the rooms more collaborative.
“It is a permanent modular building, so it has an open plan environment with a lot of flexible learning spaces, which can be closed off from each other,” he said. “The rooms are the exact same size area, but we have been smarter in how we use the learning spaces.
“We have six classroom spaces along with an art room and science room areas and a learning hub in the middle, which makes for a great space for students to come together and learn.
“We have created a really friendly, collaborative learning environment.”
Mr Keilar said the main challenge was teachers and students had lost everything and no resources from reading material to school books. He said the school was slowly building their resources back to normal.
Mr Keilar said the students had worked from Ararat College for two weeks after the fire before moving back to their school site once portable buildings were in place.
He said the community spirit has shone throughout the experience and was a massive support.
“Ararat College were fantastic support. They opened up a space for us at their school and changed their timetables – they went above and beyond,” he said.
“Our local community and further away – from Dimboola to Warrnambool to Bacchus Marsh areas – we had support from all over. Everyone rallied and provided us with resources to use.”
Mr Keilar said the school was very humbled and appreciative of the community’s support.