Light Electorate Schools

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (15:39): Today, I would like to speak about some schools in my electorate and servicing my electorate and acknowledge the important role that schools play in our community. You can tell the sort of community you have by the school. Equally, the school also impacts on those communities around it. I took the opportunity in the last few weeks to meet some of the new principals in the schools in my electorate.

I met with Tricia Joseph, who is the new principal at Wasleys Primary School. Tricia has won a five-year contract at the primary school, which is a small school in the country township of Wasleys. In fact, it has under 30 students and they actually fit in two classrooms. Putting that aside, the school is much loved by its community, and the new principal has a great vision to grow the school. She is looking at different ways of ensuring that people who live in the community see Wasleys Primary School as their first choice.

One of the challenges the school has is that it lacks an after-hours school care program. As a result, a lot of parents who work in the community often have their children attend other schools in the region that provide that service. So, Tricia, her staff and her governing council are exploring ways to provide that additional service and therefore have some additional students. Even though it is a small school, it does some wonderful things. One of the things it does every year is showcase science and STEM subjects. They have a special science fair, which is also attended by other schools in the region, and I am planning to attend this year.

The other new principal I met was Alec Tibbitts, who is the new principal at Gawler East Primary School. Gawler East is probably at the other end of the spectrum in terms of size. It is effectively an urban school and has over 300 students. It is quite a large school. When I met Alec, he was very excited in his new role, having come from smaller country schools. Again, he has used his first weeks at that school to understand that community and address some of the challenges facing that school community, like every other school in our society today.

What impressed me about both those principals in these public schools was their strong commitment not only to public education but also to say that, because you go to a public school, your expectations of a student should not be any less than of any other student. They are both strongly committed to achieving great outcomes for their students at those two schools.

Another school I visited recently is not geographically in my electorate but certainly there are students who come from and live in my electorate. I took the opportunity to visit Blakes Crossing Christian College for the first time, which is just outside my boundary, along with my colleague the member for Little Para (after the next election, the member for Elizabeth). This is a newish school, a Christian school and a non-government school that has grown very quickly. It has some very impressive facilities and is well supported by the Blakes Crossing community.

The college started with six students in a room within the offices of Lendlease, which was the developer of the area, and then moved very quickly to the school it has now, which caters for hundreds of students. It is now an R-8 school and they are progressively adding a new year level each year. Like most schools that grow quite quickly, they are in the process of building some new classrooms and new science facilities, etc.

I met with the principal, Warren Hall, who has a great vision and great ambition for his school and the school community. It is a very impressive school and the staff are very committed. I would certainly encourage parents to consider that school as one of the choices available to them, amongst many other good schools in the area.

I would like to mention another school I visited that is not in my electorate, St Patrick's Technical College at Elizabeth, which celebrated its 10^th anniversary. Given the time, I might elaborate a bit further on the history of St Patrick's at another time, but I would like to congratulate them on 10 years of successful education in vocational education.