Page 3719 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 October 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
There has been some, I think, legitimate confusion by the Government concerning which of these two schools is the larger. This may have come from the fact that there was an extension to Weetangera school many years ago that has not really been noted in the records, or the additional capacity has not been recorded. The confusion should stop. The facts are clear. Weetangera school is the larger school. In physical size it is larger. It is some 20 per cent larger than Hawker School and it has 30 per cent more classroom space. There is no question about this. It is certainly clear in my mind, as I have been in both schools, that Weetangera is the larger school.
Yet, the records in the department at various times have maintained, quite erroneously, that the schools are perhaps the same size, or maybe that Hawker is a bit larger. This is simply not the case, and I invite the Minister to acquire an independent surveyor, as the Weetangera parents have done, and verify these figures. This is an important fact because some decisions have been made based on this concept or belief that Hawker school is a larger school and would take at least as many children as Weetangera, and this is wrong. So, the basis for decisions is simply not correct.
Of some considerable importance too, of course, are the facts that Weetangera school has a larger school hall, its classrooms are larger, they allow for a better standard of education and of physical comfort for the students, the staff rooms are bigger, and it is actually a better school to teach in for these reasons. As an ex-teacher I can comment very forcibly about that.
The thought that these two schools were about the same size physically led to decisions that they had the same student capacity, and that has more recently been determined at 415. I urge the Minister to have a close look at that, to get his team to go back and review that, because it is not the case. In any circumstances, the Weetangera school can hold more students than Hawker school. In fact, if there were to be a closure of schools there - and I do not support that - at a pinch you could fit all the students into Weetangera school, whereas you could not fit them into Hawker school. If you were going to have some logic behind your planning and you were going to close a school, you could save the two demountables, or certainly one of those demountables, by closing Hawker school, and you would get other bonuses as well, like larger grounds. Go back, Mr Humphries, and have a look at those enrolment figures and check them out. Weetangera school will take more.
As to enrolments and the number of children actually attending these schools, this year there are more students attending Weetangera school than Hawker. Of course, the number of students attending a school is an important factor in making decisions about the future of schools, but in this case it is not particularly relevant because I
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .