Exciting news! A new high school is currently under construction in Perth’s Piara Waters suburb. Piara Waters Secondary College, the planning name, was announced last year and is expected to open its doors to Year 7 students in the 2023 school year.
The school is currently going through stage one of construction. This stage, costing $60 million, will include an impressive range of facilities such as an administration block, student services centre, learning areas, library, food and technology areas, hard courts, and an educational support centre.
The high school will initially have space for 750 students and 50 education support students. But once stage two is completed, the school will be able to accommodate 1500 students.
The school will include a specialist education support centre to cater for students with special education needs. On top of specialist education support classrooms, the support centre in the school will have a sensory room, therapy room, independent skills room and multipurpose learning areas. It is a positive step that students in the area with a diverse range of educational needs will get to access supportive and quality education close to their homes.
The State Government says the new school will ease pressure on Harrisdale Senior High School. Harrisdale Senior High School is also a relatively new school that is growing into a new year group each year. The school welcomed its first Year 7 cohort in 2017.
Harrisdale SHS completed its final stage of construction last February, adding a new list of impressive amenities and expanding its capacity to 925 more students. As of 2021, they have 1631 students enrolled. Harrisdale SHS also took in their first intake of GATE students this year.
Piara Waters is a steadily growing suburb with an estimated 14,800 people living there as of 2020, a 9% growth since 2019. The new school will complement the three new primary schools in the surrounding area: Aspiri Primary School that opened in 2019, North Harrisdale Primary School that opened in 2021 and Forrestdale South East Primary School that will open in 2022.
The catchment area for Piara Waters Secondary College is yet to be announced.