Holy Family Catholic Primary School is a coeducational primary school located in Menai, New South Wales. They aim to provide a welcoming and inclusive environment for their students to support them in their learning journey. 

Sebel has worked with Holy Family Catholic Primary School on a range of past projects. They plan to upgrade the school by focusing on one section at a time. This time around they focused their upgrade on Grade 3 through to Grade 6. Business Development Manager, Rachael Gardiner collaborated with Literacy & Executive Support Coordinator, Kristin Fallico to ensure the spaces would facilitate the teachers and students and fulfil their requirements for furniture products. 

Rachael used Sebel’s Floor Planner app to design the spaces allowing Kristin to visualise the rooms and make changes before locking in their final order. After discussing the spaces, it was apparent that a lot of the teachers used the spaces differently depending on their teaching style. Because the school wanted a cohesive look with furniture products, this meant that the products chosen would need to be flexible and easily moved around. When Rachael discovered this, she designed a range of layouts for the school using the same furniture. 

The furniture that the school opted for included Sebel’s Twist’n’Lock Tables in Rectangle, Square and Semi paired with Postura Max Chairs for general learning and Round Ottomans for the targeted teaching space. They also chose to have a tiered learning approach by using our Create-A-Space Benches which were paired with Postura Plus Stools. 

When discovering how the teachers used their classrooms, Kristin and Rachael were able to ensure the features in the classroom would support all teaching styles. Upon requests from the teachers, the Twist’n’Lock Tables had drawers added to give the students somewhere to put their belongings in a bid to keep the classroom neat and tidy. The teachers were also drawn to the Twist’n’Lock Tables for both the ease of moving them and adjusting the table heights. 

It was insightful to learn that the teachers use the benches differently depending on their classroom needs. Some teachers alternated the students sitting on the benches and some teachers use them for collaborative brainstorming sessions where they utilise the writeable tops. They also introduced four single tables in each room that the teachers can use as they need for things like breakout spaces and individual learning. 

For the colour palette of the upgrade, Holy Family Catholic Primary school settled on Grape and Aqua to give a consistent look across Grade 3 through to Grade 6. This created a vibrant and inviting space which the students and teachers love. 

Following the installation, Rachael found that the school had trouble with getting their old furniture removed from the school. She saw this as a great opportunity to help with the full end-to-end service and was able to arrange for the furniture to be collected for them. Sebel was able to take the furniture and recycle what they could as part of our sustainability objective on reducing landfill.