1980 – 1989
Continuing growth in student enrolment in the 1980s, coupled with diversified educational and curriculum requirements and a strengthening retention rate, meant additional teaching space was required if St Andrew's was to provide high standards of education. By the middle 1980s enrolment had grown to around 600 students.
In 1984 the School began to examine possible additional sites close to St Andrew's House that could be developed to provide suitable senior secondary school facilities. The decision to seek an alternative site was a wise one although the School's ultimate acquisition of property was not without its delays or difficulties. These difficulties were caused, not by Church intervention which had been the case in the early 1970s, but by the vagaries and commercial demands of the Sydney property market.
Ultimately two smaller adjoining sites were amalgamated onto the Druitt/Sussex Streets parcel. Architectural and construction agreements were eventually finalised during 1988. Southern International Development Corporation, a medium sized property development company, acquired the sites and constructed the thirteen-storey commercial building at 51 Druitt Street. Legal and financial agreements were signed in December 1988 and demolition and excavation commenced early in 1989.
During the early 1980s the School recognised the need to complement and balance its city-orientated educational program with a wider rural perspective. The School commenced outdoor education in 1982 using hired properties while it investigated possible purchase of its own outdoor education campsite. Early in 1984 the School purchased a 100 acre (40 ha) rural property in the Southern Highlands of NSW at Penrose near Moss Vale which was called Kirrikee. This name is a derivation from an aboriginal word for whistling kite, a bird that frequents the district.
