CHICKEN wire fencing, a septic system that overflows in the rain, demountable buildings and toilets and an uphill slope to kick a football around on.
It sounds like a makeshift solution in a disaster zone - but for parents of Gillieston Public School students, it's where they drop their kids off in the hopes of an equal education opportunity.
Sharon and Todd Sellers have three children at the school, for their fourth, an education at Gillieston would quite literally be impossible.
"If they had the facilities we could entertain it but we're nowhere near it, not even in the same solar system, not a chance," Mr Sellers said.
"It's become a temporary school almost, and for a school that's been here since the 1850s that's just ridiculous.
"I feel completely underwhelmed, it's substandard, it's just not acceptable - that's why so many parents in this area, hundreds, will send their children out of zone in the Maitland district rather than to our local school."
It's a small school with just under 300 students, but the parents are determined to see their kids handed the same opportunities as others in the area.
They've launched a petition calling on the state government to address the infrastructure issues.
With no real traffic management plan in the middle of a suburban area with new subdivisions cropping up around it - school children are left without even a pedestrian crossing as parents attempt to navigate the narrow streets around it.
There's no footpath around much of the school, and inside, the school hall-cross-tuckshop can't even fit its students for an assembly - so rain, hail or shine, they're ushered out to the COLA.
P&C president Katie Ferguson is taking the issues to a hearing for the planning and delivery of school infrastructure in New South Wales at Parliament House on Monday, determined to see the state government invest in permanent buildings that will secure its future.
"I've had parents tell me there are reasons why they can't send their children here," she said.
"They will have to open their wallets quite generously to get it to where it needs to be, this is millions."
And, they have the backing of Member for Maitland Jenny Aitchison, who said the government has to bite the bullet and invest.
"The maths just doesn't add up, they've had $58,000 in capital expenditure over eight years with an increase in enrolments of over 76 per cent - and they've spent $700,000 or more in that period on maintenance," she said.
"It's not a 21st century learning environment."
