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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-03-08 Daily Xml
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Port Augusta Cabinet

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (15:01): My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. Minister, can you provide details to the house on some of the innovative and community-minded schools you visited on the recent country cabinet visit?

Mr Pengilly: That's terribly leading.

The SPEAKER: Yes, the member for Finniss has a point. Minister.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for Higher Education and Skills) (15:01): I was delighted to visit three schools during the recent country cabinet committee. Each of them brought something special to their community, and so I would like to briefly touch on each of them.

Quorn school has not only an extraordinarily good Stephanie Alexander kitchen garden, which is also a place used for working out some of the behaviour issues with some kids—so a very imaginative way of using outdoor space—but also separately, but adjacent, a bush tucker garden which has been built in combination with the local Aboriginal community, and an outdoor pizza oven decorated with the art of reconciliation by the kids; quite a magnificent suite of outdoor spaces for the kids. Not content with that, the parents group is also in the process of significantly upgrading the early childhood part of the school site—the early years—in order to have much more imaginative play spaces, but also to provide much-needed shade as everything gets hotter and drier in that part of the world.

They are also undertaking a project which has been in concert with the local Aboriginal community of creating seed bombs out of clay with wildflower and other plant seeds, which they then give to tourists to take up with them as they go further north to throw from the car, or to throw from their hiking in order to regenerate a lot of the native vegetation around that area. It is a completely brilliant idea that the kids absolutely enjoy being physically part of creating, but also knowing that they are part of regenerating their local environment.

I then went to Hawker primary, which is a really very attractive primary school; incredibly well maintained, and extraordinarily polite kids. One of the kids who took me around is clearly destined to be a footballer. He is looking very seriously at getting into the state level, and he's interested, obviously, in moving on to AFL if at all possible—unfortunately for the wrong team, but we forgive these things; we're all South Australians.

The kids were terrific, and they asked the member for Giles and myself a number of searching and interesting questions about what it's like to be politicians. They, too, have an excellent kitchen garden, which is contributed to by all of the kids, and I was delighted to spend a bit of time with the younger kids doing their active play, which they do inside in air conditioning at this time of year. Nonetheless, it is extremely good for their fitness levels and their coordination.

They have a library, which is a shared library—and, in fact, so too did Quorn—where they have hooked into the local government network of libraries so that tourists can drop by either of those libraries, borrow a book, and drop it off later at another library in South Australia. That means that the schools are really acting, as we've often talked about, as a community hub; as a place for the rest of the community.

Finally, I revisited Leigh Creek Area School recently in November, with the member for Stuart. I was very pleased because when I was there in November I think it was about a week off the official closure and, to go back and see the school thriving, with far more enrolments than we anticipated—87 enrolments, which argues for a strong future for that school—was excellent. The spirit was very strong and the mood of the school was very good.

What I was there specifically to do was launch a book by George Ivanoff called Remote Rescue, which is one of a series of four he has written for primary school age kids about the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and we had a fellow from the RFDS there as well. The kids absolutely loved it. They loved hearing about the plane.

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