Change is afoot at St Xavier's Primary School.
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The Gunnedah school will go to tender later this year for a $12 million infrastructure overhaul, with construction to start in 2020.
The project will bring the historic school into the 21st century, creating new, flexible spaces for staff and students.
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It is a long-term vision of principal Jen Honner and supported by the Catholic Schools Office Diocese of Armidale, which is funding the project with some help from the federal government's Capital Grants Program.
Ms Honner sat down with the Catholic Schools Office and Glendenning Szoboszlay Architects recently to nut out the "nitty gritty" of the interior design, with "quite a bit of time on what they call the adult working space".
In the new design, Ms Honner will not have an office.
Instead, she will join the rest of the staff in one large open-plan building and use closed meeting rooms when required.
"In the new building, the main focus had to be on creating a huge space that leaders could live in," Ms Honner said.
I need to be at the coal face - not the traditional 'locked away in an office'.
- Jen Honner, St Xavier's principal
This is an element that excites her and she is already becoming accustomed to a mobile workplace, sitting in on classes wherever possible to immerse herself in the learning environment.
"I need to be at the coal face - not the traditional 'locked away in an office'," Ms Honner said.
"You need to be able to stand in the middle of a room and see where everyone is at the drop of a hat."
The project will see the current infant classrooms gutted and refurbished so they can be used for administration buildings and staff areas. The current administration and staff areas will be freed up and may house a pre-school in the future.
Two weatherboard buildings will be relocated - one on site and one to the grounds of St Joseph's Catholic Church - and a new covered area will be established in front of the canteen and toilet blocks.
The current Kindergarten classrooms will move across, so they are on the corner of Henry and Bloomfield streets.
A new block of classrooms will be built on a paved area of the playground, parallel to existing classrooms, which will be refurbished. The blocks will be linked by an open space, which will run through the middle, and house the library. The whole area will be closed in.
