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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-10-26 Daily Xml
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ADELAIDE WEST SPECIAL EDUCATION CENTRE

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon) (15:13): Can the Minister for Education update the house on progress towards the opening of the Adelaide West Special Education Centre?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Minister for Education, Minister for Early Childhood Development) (15:13): I am pleased to say that considerable progress has been made. In fact, next Thursday the Adelaide West special school, a new school, will open. It is part of over $200 million of investment in six new schools across Adelaide's metropolitan area. I was there this morning to get a better sense of exactly what will be happening at that school. It is an enormously exciting project.

I want to thank the principal, Sylvia Flato, and the students and staff for warmly welcoming me to that school. The school does a number of important things. It is a cutting edge school for Disability Services. The whole of the school is accessible under cover, which is really important for students who are particularly vulnerable to temperature changes. These are quite profoundly intellectually and physically disabled students.

The whole of the classroom network has hoists throughout it so that children can be easily moved out of their wheelchairs. There is a state-of-the-art gymnasium, a new maze and a new playground. There is a very important innovation, an independent living unit, which will allow these young people to gain independent living skills, and that is something that is very important for them and their families, that is, to know that they can gain the skills to go on and make a success of their community.

I suppose one of the most exciting things about the new facility, apart from its being state of the art and including things such as interactive whiteboards, is the fact that it is right next door to the Ocean View College. This will enable the special school, which was quite isolated in its previous location at Regency Park, to be part of that school community. There was a wonderful moment at the school today where we had students from Ocean View College whose brother was at the special school, and they were able to be with him as they were celebrating the pending opening of this new school. That is the sort of thing, the interaction between people with disabilities and the broader community, that is important.

One of the great challenges in disability education is: how do you provide for the special needs of people with disabilities, but, at the same time, not isolate them so they are not part of the broader community? This school, I think, achieves that balance beautifully—a special school next to a mainstream school. The community is very excited about forging those links.

One of the opportunities we had was the students decided to make a video of their journey from the Regency Park school to the new school. It was an idea of one of the students to film and record the whole exercise. They were involved in interviews, presentation to the camera. It was wonderful to see the look on the faces of the young people as they saw themselves on the video talking, expressing themselves and being part of a presentation of which they are entitled to be very proud.

It is a great new school. It is one of six new schools we are rolling out as part of the Education Works package. The remaining schools will be on soon, and if they are anything like this one, it is going to be a very successful enterprise.

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