The Education Directorate says it is reviewing the use of non-teaching spaces as classrooms after offering demountables to a Belconnen school previously forced to base students in its library.
Aranda Primary parents earlier this year spoke against classes being taught in the school's library and community room, arguing the situation was unfair on students learning in those spaces and those who wanted to access them for their intended purpose.
After first describing the situation as "not uncommon", the directorate has now offered the school two transportable classrooms for 2018.
An Education Directorate spokeswoman said the use of what were traditionally not classrooms as teaching spaces was being examined as part of a broader review of capacity. Other schools have also complained of space constraints.
"Each year, without fail, we ensure that there is a place for every child and young person in the ACT public school within their local priority enrolment area - from kindergarten through to year 12," the spokeswoman said.
"To ensure that we can continue to achieve this, we monitor school capacities and our enrolment trends on a rolling basis, and plan and deliver changes to school capacities to meet changing enrolment trends.
"... we work with other ACT government agencies to review and update our enrolment forecasting models regularly based on population, dwelling growth and other data, and we adjust priority enrolment areas and school capacities accordingly."
North Ainslie Primary, Mawson Primary and Aranda Primary are listed as "experiencing critical enrolment demand pressure" on the Education Directorate's website with each school subject to an adjustment of its priority enrolment area.
From next year, Pearce and Chifley will be rezoned to direct new students exclusively to Torrens Primary, Bruce residents will send children to Maribyrnong Primary instead of Aranda Primary, and Downer families will be unable to enrol their children in North Ainslie Primary.
ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations president John Haydon acknowledged capacity as a long-running issue for Canberra's government schools.
"I guess there's a risk in setting an absolute hard and fast inflexible rule, but certainly if libraries and other spaces were only going to be used as a very last resort to deal with capacity issues then that would be a good thing," he said.
A 2015 report from the Australian Council of Educational Research projected there could be 41,328 children in Canberra primary schools by 2020 - an increase of about 31 per cent on 2010 figures and equal to 41 additional classes each year for 10 years.
The directorate has said school capacity figures have not yet been determined for 2017 despite releasing enrolment data in February. The directorate also did not confirm whether demountables had been offered to other schools that had reached their limit.
