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

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 fortress-like barriers, but the evidence does not necessarily support that approach.

Research suggests that opening green space to the public can improve safety rather than diminish it. The New York-based architect and urban planner Oscar Newman’s “defensible space theory” emphasised establishing clarity around public, semi-public and private spaces, including citizens enhancing security with their eyes on these spaces, and thoughtful design over heavy, physical barriers.

More recent research from the University of Melbourne examines the subject in a book called Schools as Community Hubs: Building ‘More than a School’ for Community Benefit. Several authors argue that excessive fencing can weaken schools’ relationships with their surrounding communities and create unwelcoming environments. Among the authors is architect and researcher Jamileh Jahangiri, the founder of the Sydney-based Studio Orsi,who argues that safe schools are best achieved through collaboration among students, parents, teachers and local communities. Passive security measures – thoughtful design, visibility, clear public messaging and expectations, and active use of space – can be more effective than high fences and locked gates.

This is because Australians often overestimate crime risks even as crime rates have fallen. In that context, the rush to fence schools appears to be driven as much by fear, liability concerns and institutional control as by evidence.

Schools owe a duty of care to the public under common law. In the event of injury to a member of the local community, there is a risk of legal liability, which can be reduced by installing a fence and a locked gate. Alternatively, this risk can be addressed by removing foreseeable hazards, conducting regular maintenance, installing cameras, posting a “use at your own risk” sign, and maintaining insurance cover.

The deeper issue at play here is the common good – the best possible outcome for the greatest number of people. A gated-community mentality works against that principle. When publicly funded schools close themselves off from surrounding neighbourhoods, they diminish opportunities for connection, recreation and shared ownership of local space.

This trend extends beyond government schools. Across Australian cities, universities, churches, golf courses, neighbourhoods and independent schools have increasingly restricted access to land and facilities that were once more open. In many cases, such as Shore School’s playing fields, which cover a whopping nine hectares in Northbridge, long-existing community access has been curtailed over the past decade. It is not driven by hostility to the surrounding community’s wishes but by safeguarding concerns for students and buildings, liability and legislative requirements.

One important example is section 83C of the Education Act 1990 (NSW), introduced by amendments in 2014 regarding governing not-for-profit, non-government schools. The provision was designed to ensure that government funding supported education rather than private gain. Yet in practice, it has often discouraged schools from sharing facilities freely, except on market terms.

For generations, schools shared ovals, pools, laboratories, equipment and facilities with neighbouring schools and community groups. These arrangements saved money, strengthened relationships and fostered interaction across sectors and socioeconomic backgrounds. Sharing was accepted as part of community life. It extended beyond facilities to include events, programs and collaborative learning opportunities.

After section 83C took effect, many informal partnerships weakened. What was intended to protect against misuse of public funding also created barriers to generosity and practical co-operation. The result has been a gradual erosion of goodwill and co-operation between state, independent, and Catholic schools and their local communities.

To find space-sharing compromises, some recent examples stand out as exceptional rather than the norm. Notable are the community fluid zones on the ground floor of the Green Square Public School, senior students at St Andrew’s Cathedral School integrating with city users to share public space on a normal school day, and the recently implemented Share Our Space program, which mostly addresses public schools sharing their space during holiday periods.

The local community has a legitimate expectation of sharing the open space at Rose Bay Secondary College and, indeed, at independent and Catholic schools. In the spirit of the common good, schools and other institutions should share open spaces whenever it is safe and practical.

Dr Jen George is a senior lecturer at Charles Sturt University and an adviser to school communities. Her PhD was in urban planning and community governance.