With only five students enrolled for 2016, the school has appealed to the community to speak out about whether or not it wants the 143-year-old Bullarto Primary School to remain open.

The state government has a policy of not closing schools. However, with student numbers expected to drop even lower in 2017, the school has appealed to its close-knit rural community for support.

Classroom teacher Bruce Rolfe said numbers had dwindled in recent years – from a high of 31 students in 2008 and 28 in 2011, to 12 enrolled for 2015.

However, Mr Rolfe said he, his students, and the school community saw tremendous value in the school and appealed to the community to support the school and keep it open.

The school has a heavy focus on environmental science as it is situated in the midst of the Wombat State Forest. It also boasts a goat stud, a vegetable garden, an indigenous garden, a multipurpose room, and is well-resourced in terms of IT, with laptops for every child.

Bullarto Primary School also has a flexible approach to learning, having had success to re-engaging children having difficulties at mainstream schools.

The school’s students typically come from Spargo Creek, Trentham, Daylesford, Blackwood and Glenlyon. However in recent years, several of the school’s families had moved away.

If the school closes, Mr Rolfe and the school principal Arthur Lane will be redeployed to other schools. But they believe in Bullarto Primary.

“We have to make sure the rest of the community know. We’re at a level we can’t really sustain,” Mr Rolfe said.

“Once this asset is no longer a school, it will never be a school again.

“These kids all have individual learning programs. We have so much technology, even when we had 28 kids, every kid had their own netbook.”

School parent Michelle Clifford said her child Eden, 11, had struggled in a mainstream school environment but flourished since he started at Bullarto Primary.

She encouraged other parents to consider the school.

“One of the things that attracted us here, apart from the environmental science program, was the parent-student interaction and the way they work with the curriculum,” Ms Clifford said.

“(Eden) was struggling at a bigger school. They just didn’t have the time to spend with him.

“In the short time Eden has been here, his school work has improved 70 per cent.”

Ms Clifford said other parents could be put off by the lack of public transport to the school, but car pooling was always an option.

She said students who struggled in mainstream schools could become disadvantaged.

Eden, who wants to be a robotic engineer when he grows up, said the teachers helped him in “different ways” and said he looked forward to school each day.

“Now when I wake up, I feel good because I’m going to see my friends but also the work – the the teachers can explain the work really well.” 

Bullarto Primary will host a Save Our School open day this Saturday, August 27. The day will run 10am to 1pm, with all welcome.

Free pizza will be offered from 12pm. The open day will be held at 131 South Bullarto Road.