Don’t fence our schools in. Where else will the children (and grown-ups) play?

May 28, 2026 — 7:30pm

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When I was growing up in the 1980s, schools routinely opened their grounds to local communities. Buildings might have been locked, but playgrounds and ovals were open on weekends and after-hours. The Rose Bay Secondary College neighbourhood lockout, as reported in this masthead, shows the NSW Department of Education is fencing itself off from deep, long-held community sentiment.

This is not the first time a fence has been erected around a school’s open space; there are almost 1400 state schools in NSW with security fencing. And independent and Catholic schools have come under pressure to open their grounds to the wider community. For many principals, parents and teachers, the barrier offers relief. For residents, it feels unfair.

Shared open spaces reflected an era shaped by ideas about liveable, people-centred cities, especially those advanced by the late American-Canadian urban thinker Jane Jacobs. Jacobs argued that active, shared public spaces, supported by natural surveillance and “eyes on the street”, helped create safe and inclusive communities.

That philosophy once felt deeply Australian. We have long resisted the idea that beaches, parks or sporting fields should belong exclusively to any particular group. Open space was for sharing. Anyone could join a game of cricket on the oval. Strangers became teammates.

Today, however, many schools are increasingly fenced off from the communities around them. Security concerns are often used to justify........

© The Sydney Morning Herald