School Construction in NSW: How We Build While Classes Keep Running

Most school building work in regional NSW happens while the school is open. Kids still arrive at 9, the bell still goes at recess, and parents still pull up at the front gate at 3. The builder has to fit around all of that, not the other way round.

PV Projects has delivered school construction work for School Infrastructure NSW in the Far West, with the schools open and classes running. Here's how we go about it and what we've learned on the job.

Why a live school site is different

On a normal commercial site you fence it off and get on with it. On a school, the site is in the middle of the playground, the classrooms and the drop-off zone. That changes everything:

  • Students and staff are moving around the works all day, so separation has to be planned, not improvised.
  • Noise matters. A concrete saw outside a classroom during a lesson isn't on.
  • Deliveries and plant clash with drop-off and pick-up if you don't time them.
  • The principal is a key stakeholder, alongside the School Infrastructure NSW project team, and needs to know what's coming and when.

Get those right and the school barely notices you're there. Get them wrong and you lose the school's trust fast.

Broken Hill Public School: scaffold around a working school

At Broken Hill Public School we replaced the deteriorating timber louvres and eaves on Blocks A and B across two school terms in 2025. The site is steep and rocky, the buildings are double storey, and the school stayed fully operational the whole time.

What made it work:

  • 490 lineal metres of scaffold built around active school areas
  • Protected walkways, drop nets and exclusion zones so students and staff could get around safely
  • Weekend works and controlled deliveries to keep disruption away from teaching time
  • Twice-weekly coordination with the school and weekly reporting to stakeholders

It was delivered on time and on budget, and won Extensions, Renovations and Refurbishments under $5m at the 2026 West Region MBA Awards. We've written about the heritage side of this job, and the stonework at Broken Hill North Public School, in Heritage Restoration in Broken Hill.

At Broken Hill North, school operations kept going through the underpinning works thanks to coordinated access and controls on noise, dust and runoff. Different scope, same principle.

Morgan Street Public School: accessibility upgrades in stages

One of our current school jobs is the integration works at Morgan Street Public School in Broken Hill, again for School Infrastructure NSW. It's a multi-block accessibility upgrade: a new lift, accessible bathrooms, ramps, pathways and electrical upgrades.

Accessibility work is a good example of why staging matters. You're working on the very paths, doors and bathrooms the school uses every day, across several blocks at once. A few things we do on this job:

  • Save the most disruptive work for school holidays where we can. We planned bathroom fit-offs for the September holidays
  • Send the client a written update every week, covering the week's works, the next week, open RFIs and variations, and hold a monthly site meeting
  • Coordinate specialist trades, like the lift installer, with our own crew and the school's needs

The lift has been installed and tested, and the job is in its finishing stage, with handover expected in November 2026.

See our current projects.

Our checklist for building works on operating schools

Whether it's a lift, a façade, a carpark or a heritage repair, the same few things come up on every school job.

1. Plan separation before you plan the build. Fencing, hoarding, exclusion zones and protected walkways go on the drawings early, along with where students will walk instead.

2. Time the noisy and heavy work. Weekends, school holidays and set delivery windows away from drop-off and pick-up keep trucks and plant clear of kids.

3. Talk to the school often. Regular check-ins with the principal and written updates to the School Infrastructure NSW team mean no-one is surprised on Monday morning.

4. Stage the job so the school keeps working. Only take out what you can give back quickly, whether that's a bathroom, a doorway or a path.

5. Keep the paperwork tight. Government school work comes with WHS plans, traffic management, inspections and reporting. Our team is used to it.

We used the same thinking on the Broken Hill High School carpark upgrade, where the aim was to improve safety for students, staff and visitors while keeping disruption to the school day to a minimum. It also applied at the Tooraweenah School Residence for Public Works.

A school builder for Central West and Far West NSW

PV Projects is based in Dubbo and works right across the Central West and Far West, from Broken Hill and Packsaddle to Goodooga, Tooraweenah, Parkes and Grenfell. Remote jobs are normal for us. We run workforce, materials and deliveries from our Dubbo base, and we plan the logistics from day one.

We're NSW Government prequalified under SCM0256 and SCM1461, hold NSW contractor licence 384586C, and are a 50% Aboriginal-owned, Supply Nation registered business with ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001 certification.

Have you got school works coming up anywhere in regional NSW, such as accessibility upgrades, façade or roof replacement, external works or refurbishment? Talk to us early and we'll help you work out how to stage it around the school.

Call PV Projects on (02) 6884 3240 (Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5pm), email admin@pvprojects.com.au, or send us an enquiry. We're at 11 Asset Way, Dubbo.