Delacombe Primary School this year has the largest prep intake of any school in the Ballarat region welcoming 83 new starters - about 30 per cent more than last year.

And the school population overall is almost 15 per cent higher than it was at the same time last year, with 465 pupils enrolled for 2021.

At the same time the new Lucas Primary School, which opened with 67 students including 20 preps in 2020, has 57 prep students and 155 pupils in total this year.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? HAVE YOUR SAY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ARTICLE

Nearby Siena Catholic Primary School has seen prep enrolments soar from 33 in 2018 to 52 this year.

Delacombe Primary School principal Scott Phillips said the growth this year had taken the school by surprise.

"It's really just happened in the last six months," he said.

"The trend for us in the past five years has been around 55 to 60 preps and we anticipated we might move up to 65 this year. In about August/September we still felt the intake would be around 65 and when we came back to on-site learning in term four they just kept coming in and coming in."

The school has previously had three grades in each year level but, with the extra enrolments, there are now four prep classes and extra teaching space had to be found.

"We've got a lot of new parents, then add to that the people who have moved to Ballarat from Melbourne ... and people relocating from one side of Ballarat to the other," Mr Phillips said.

In addition to the prep students, 40 new students joined the school in other year levels throughout last year and the start of this year.

"We are at capacity now based on the size we've got," Mr Phillips said. "We have had to have a rethink about where we put this extra (prep) class and have a restructure of our facilities because of that."

The school's library and Chinese classrooms have been combined to make room for the extra prep class.

"We are now talking to the (education) department about another portable on the basis we believe that next year we will definitely be past 500 students, and there's a good chance we could be a bit over, which effectively means we may as well lobby now for two classrooms and get a purpose-built portable.

"We recognise that we are growing faster than anticipated and already having conversations about what we think we need for 2022, which is to cater for at least 500."

The school's new basketball stadium is due for completion this term.

Lucas Primary School, which opened last year, has been built for 475 students.

Principal Sue Sawyer said many new students were also new to Ballarat, having moved in to the city in recent months.

"Obviously preps are in the area but there are many other families who have shifted in," she said at the start of the school year. "Most are new to Ballarat."

Lucas will have eight classes this year, twice as many as last year, and has seven new staff members including classroom and specialist teachers.

The enrolment zones for the three schools, along with Alfredton Primary which has also seen a 30 per cent rise in the number of prep students over the past four years, cover most of the new estates under construction now to the west of the Ballarat CBD, and those planned for the future in the city's burgeoning western growth zone.

With so many extra students starting primary school, pressure will grow over the next six years as they approach secondary school age with Ballarat High School already at capacity and Phoenix P-12 Community College also growing rapidly.

Phoenix P-12 principal Karen Snibson said the school was "blessed with huge land space" and taking in the extra student numbers would be about "thinking what are the needs of students and how do we best cater for them as a school, making sure programs are of the highest quality and we retain that sense of community within a larger community".

"We are very fortunate with investment and our kids are learning in state of the art facilities," she said. "And a lot of our facilities are flexible so we will be able to adapt as we grow."

Buninyong MP Michaela Settle said the government had a keen eye on education needs in growth areas like Ballarat's west.

"The growth is enormous, we can all see it rising, and it's a key role of government to keep an eye always to the future. Without question we will continue to make these investments to make sure we develop our wonderful new generation."

If you are seeing this message you are a loyal digital subscriber to The Courier, as we made this story available only to subscribers. Thank you very much for your support and allowing us to continue telling Ballarat's story. We appreciate your support of journalism in our great city.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? HAVE YOUR SAY BELOW