Principal at Pomonal and Moyston primary schools Anthony Caine said enrolments at both schools had almost doubled over the last five years.

Pomonal had increased from 18 enrolments in 2011 to 31 this year, while Moyston went from 14 in 2011 to 32 this year. 

It comes after Halls Gap Primary School saw its highest number of enrolments in 16 years with 41 students.  

Mr Caine said the increases were significant and a result of younger families moving to the area.

“New people are coming to these towns and settling,” he said.

“And what’s great is that there are more children of a school age.”

Mr Caine said both schools needed an extra classroom to meet the current enrolment demands.

“At Pomonal we had a recently developed art class, but that had to be transformed into a classroom,” he said.

“And at Moyston our library room is now a classroom – obviously going from two classrooms to three means that we have had to employ more staff so it is creating employment opportunities.”

Mr Caine said there were many benefits to sending children to smaller, rural schools.  

“The amount of support that children can get in small schools is great – we have 10 in each of our classrooms, so teachers can spend more time with the students,” he said. 

But Mr Caine said smaller schools were treated no differently to larger schools, and were still required to meet the same targets.

“Through the Department of Education the accountability is the same as larger schools,” he said. 

“We have to reach the same targets, we have the same assessments for our pupils and we are expected to meet the same student improvement demands.

“Recently there has been a big push from the Minister of Education and the Department of Education to achieve these results, so there is pressure to see those improvements.”