All week Bowen Public School’s 233 students have been eagerly waiting to be allowed on their new playing fields.
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But when the ribbon was cut they ran, played, tumbled and kicked goals on Friday afternoon.
The 100-metre curved running track, futsal soccer field and upgraded basketball courts are the culmination of two years’ fund-raising and planning.
School principal Rob McPherson said the facilities had been eagerly anticipated by the students.
“The kids have been looking forward to it,” he said.
“The anticipation has been palpable.”
He said the work fences came down this week and the students had kept off it, waiting until after the opening ceremony.
Mr McPherson said the funds for the work had been raised by the school community.
He said the facilities consisted of a 100-metre running track with a bend in the middle, a futsal-size soccer field and replacing a bitumen surface on the basketball courts with synthetic grass.
“It is a 70-metre straight and a 30-metre bend with a staggered start, it is half of a 200 metre track,” he said.
It will also enable the school to host its own school athletics carnival for the first time, in April.
Previously the students have had to travel to other ovals.
“It think it was two years, a lot of planning,” he said.
“It has paid off, it will last forever, we won’t have to water it.”
The ribbon was cut by Kevin Shurmer, asset services officer with School Infrastructure NSW which is part of the Department of Education.
Mr Shurmer said there had been extensive planning.
Lesa Dunn, director of the department’s Asset Management Unit, said the synthetic fields would be popular.
“Even Little A’s [athletics] run on grass in Orange,” she said.