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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-06-03 Daily Xml
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Taylor Electorate

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (15:48): I would like to speak today about a recent round of principal visits I have just completed. Normally I finish this in the first term of the year, but with the state election being in March I have not had the opportunity to do this. Since 2010 it has allowed me to visit all the schools in my electorate, and there are very many—about 95. I would like to go through and briefly give people a snapshot of where all my schools are going in the area, because I would like to pay tribute to all the principals I have spoken to, past and present, but particularly the leadership teams; there has been quite a turnover in recent years.

The one most closely located to my office is Tanya Oshinsky and Settlers Farm Campus. When I visited there in late April I was really pleased to be able to sit down and talk with their governing council chair, Brian Thomson, and Tanya about their recent award of a $10,000 Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program grant and what they are planning to do with the school. The school is a multicultural school which has a rich connection with its community. We have been talking about potentially getting a Farsi ethnic school on site and co-locating that. It has beautiful grounds and has benefited from being built up over the years.

The whole community in the north would like to have placed on record our thanks to the Jeffries family and the Jeffries compost and soils division at Buckland Park for their support of local schools with their kitchen garden grants that are blossoming in our area, particularly at Virginia Primary School, Lake Windemere B-7, Settler's Farm Campus and Burton Primary School. I will speak about their garden projects as we go along.

Virginia Primary School has been led in the last two years by Ilia Tsoutouras. Ilia is a dynamic young man who is doing fantastic things in that school. He is passionate and has great vision for renewing not just the classrooms but also educational quality. The children there are so friendly. When I walk in the gate, they always rush up and say, 'Member for Taylor, we saw you at Parliament.' They come down to visit us in Parliament House.

They are very active in the education program and debating things but also when they go out to the broader community in Virginia, they are always very friendly and welcoming children. They, too, are doing a Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden and they have plans for enlarging that, but they are also looking at different play opportunities within the school, because they have a lot of ground around that area. I am looking forward to the scoping study for the expansion of the preschool in that area as well.

Lake Windemere B-7 School last year had a fantastic opening of a $5 million refurbishment. I think the year before that they had a hall opening as a result of the schools program with the federal government. Again, they are looking at another Stephanie Alexander kitchen grant which is another $10,000 and, on top of that, they have also been involved with the Smith Family with the Girls on Track program and Graham Jaeschke is certainly working with that school to help the girls get back on track and blossom into the beautiful young women that we need in the north to be community leaders.

I know that the beneficiaries of this year's Parliamentary Mid-Winter Ball are the Smith Family. Also at Lake Windemere, we have had the opportunity of having a great principal, Angela Falkenberg, who was in the member for Torrens' area for a long time and came out about four years ago to Lake Windemere, and she has made a profound difference to that school. I am very grateful for her leadership. Not only are they involved in the Martin Seligman positive psychology work in the north, they are also a blooming school which has seen much change with that $5 million refurbishment.

Burton Primary School this year has a new principal, Alison Lynch, and her deputy, Nick. It was a pleasure to meet them formally for the first time on 9 May and they, too, are involved in a community garden project. They are working with their local Bunnings, Jeffries (who I have partnered them with), and Salisbury council to work towards a bigger expanded garden. They have had a long-term commitment to gardening on that site with Yates seeds.

They have been growing their own produce for many years and creating maths and science projects and cooking classes with the students. They are going to involve a multigenerational, multicultural site as the school moves forward. It is interesting and we are really excited that we might have been able to successfully cement down the Lions Club at Paralowie of which I am a member to be involved in that community project.

St Columba College, which is a very large school now at Andrews Farm, is run under the fantastic leadership of Madeleine Brennan, who was only telling me the other day that 99 per cent of her year 12 students completed their SACE, and an increasing percentage are getting ATAR scores.

Time expired.

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