Project-based learning will be at the centre of the Evelyn Scott School senior campus when it welcomes its first high school students next year.
About 100 students from year 7 to 10 have enrolled for 2023 and they will be learning in light-filled, contemporary spaces.
Principal Jackie Vaughan worked with the architects in designing the senior campus at the Denman Prospect school to align with her teaching philosophy.
"Our facilities are purpose-built for future-focused learning," she said.
"We have really state-of-the-art buildings for all of the major aspects of the curriculum, including science labs, technology spaces, and also really great spaces for kids to learn and collaborate together."
The new facilities include two food technology rooms, woodwork and metalwork rooms, dance studio, music and drama room, three science labs and a digital technology room.
The playground includes a challenging obstacle course, while the builders left a chunk of granite rock in the middle of the lawn to keep an element of nature in the outdoor space.
Teachers won't have sit-down desks. Instead they will rove around the class with a mobile cabinet.
The classrooms have various types of seating, from group desks to bean bags and small booths.
Ms Vaughan said students will have lockers and a timetable, but subjects will be blended together as students work on projects.
"Project-based learning is an interdisciplinary approach to learning. It's a very engaging way for kids to learn because we start with the children's interests and then we build the learning around them," she said.
She said other schools in Canberra were using this model but what made Evelyn Scott stand out was that it was being used from preschool to year 10 in a new campus.
"Project-based learning has been shown to actually tick off more achievement standards than regular, conventional learning," Ms Vaughan said.
"So this is a very sophisticated way of doing learning and it's a much more engaging way of learning. This is not experimental."
Year 6 students Ava Wheatley, Abram Thomas and Sam Moffatt said they were keen to learn more about science and geography next year. They were also looking forward to the new playground.
Evelyn Scott School cost $70 million to build and was designed by Hayball architects.
The junior school opened in 2021 with a capacity of 88 preschoolers and 600 primary school students. The senior site can host 600 year 7 to 10 students.
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