Meaning
In Australian school language, a demountable is a temporary or relocatable building, especially a portable classroom installed on a school site to provide additional teaching space.
How it is used
Current NSW Government and Department of Education material routinely contrasts demountable classrooms with permanent classrooms and buildings. ABC reporting has used demountables for decades as an ordinary noun for portable school buildings in New South Wales and describes relocatable or portable classroom as the underlying building category.
Examples
- “Our class was in a demountable for a year.”
- “The school is replacing old demountables with permanent rooms.”
- “Two new demountables were added while the main building was upgraded.”
Pronunciation
/diːˈmaʊn.tə.bəl/ · dee-MOWN-tuh-buhl
Tone and register
Neutral as a building label, though discussion of demountables can carry positive or negative opinions about school infrastructure. The word itself does not imply that a classroom is unsafe, poor quality, newly installed, or short-lived.
Visitor guidance
Visitors can understand a school demountable as a portable or relocatable classroom/building. Exact construction, age, accessibility, comfort, planned duration and compliance status vary by site, so those details require current school or government information.
Cultural context
Demountable is especially recognizable to generations of Australian public-school students because portable classrooms have been a visible response to changing enrolments and construction needs. Maperla records the lexical category without turning infrastructure debates into part of the definition.
Places represented
Open the reviewed place guide for each regional sense carried by this canonical entry.