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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-06-18 Daily Xml
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CAMPBELLTOWN EDUCATION PRECINCT

Ms SIMMONS (Morialta) (15:26): I rise today to inform the house about an exciting development in the electorate of Morialta, where we are developing an educational precinct at Campbelltown. I am pleased to have been a part of this concept since its conception.

In 2006, shortly after being elected, I met with Anne Millard, who was then principal of Charles Campbell Secondary School, and David Lawton, Principal of Campbelltown Primary School, both excellent principals, who had already established a high level of cooperation between their schools.

Later that year, in cooperation with Rebecca Heath, Director of Il Nido Child-Care Centre, David Lawton started to have conversations about building a preschool on the land at Campbelltown Primary School. All three principals/directors saw great benefit and potential and need for a continuous and seamless path of education and care at Campbelltown.

In September 2006, I was pleased to be able to facilitate a meeting at Parliament House between the principals and Michael O'Brien (member for Napier), who had just returned from visiting superschools in the UK. The two principals were excited by the vision and also to learn that our Minister for Education, Jane Lomax-Smith, was keen to modify the idea for South Australia.

Although Campbelltown was not selected to be one of the initial superschools under Education Works, the idea of an education precinct started to take shape. All of the management team saw enormous benefit in pooling their resources and facilities. They saw a place with such a wide range and volume of skilled personnel that could cater for every need of a person from birth to adult. They imagined a place where resources were shared, extensive and developmental. They hoped for new facilities where they could provide a broader curriculum with state-of-the-art ICT. The federal government Building Education Revolution grants will go a long way to meeting these hopes.

They looked at existing programs of excellence in each site, and saw how much better they could become if they were offered birth to adult, not just in the high school or in the primary school or the early childhood setting, as they were at present. They saw the possibility of creating a concept that catered for career development opportunities of people employed at the site, of improving intervention and tracking of students, a seamless and resourced education in a culture of achievement and excellence.

They saw the potential of making links between health, education and care, to support child development, and they saw the potential of working with their neighbours—the Marche Club, the Italian Didactic Centre, the Italian Consulate, local business, local council and the numerous partnerships at the site already established over the years. Most of all, they saw it as the expectation of the community and the right of every child to achieve in an education setting, in order to succeed in the rest of their lives.

The leadership group met business people, government and local council and organisations, and had conversations about the idea. The idea grew, and from what was originally a good idea they saw the potential for a model of excellence to be developed. They even drew an early model of what it might look like if their dreams came true. All this thinking, all these ideas and all this potential could not simply be called a school or a super school. It was a precinct—a place that supported the learning, growth and development of all students, staff, volunteers, associate partners and visitors. It became known as a precinct.

In 2007, the Il Nido director, Rebecca Heath, and David Lawton, wrote an Education and Care Brief for a Children's Centre and two years later a $2.78 million centre (the largest in South Australia) is now being built and is due to be completed by 18 December this year and open for business in 2010.

To date, members of the leadership group have secured almost $7 million in funding from the Building the Education Revolution, children's centre development, National School Pride and the Trade Training Centres in Schools program, and they see potential for additional funding to be negotiated, both public and private. In addition, they have formalised lease agreements for the use of the land at Campbelltown Primary School as well as a memorandum of understanding and goodwill agreements, and are currently progressing with shared facilities development across the four sites using joint contributed funds.

They have employed an architect to physically put these ideas together and they are connecting these conversations with DECS architects to see what an education precinct might look like. They are hopeful that the educational precinct concept will include some significant building of new facilities. I congratulate them on this initiative.

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