Page 1831 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 May 2010
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Ross Solly, or at least he would not admit to it. I also had the privilege to sit in on a few maths lessons where the free-flowing communication between the students and the teachers I found very impressive.
After the final lesson we met Steven Bardwell, head of SoSE and who also teaches the DARE program, and his colleagues, Brenton Mikk and Anthony Batten. The DARE program is a program for 60 boys in PE and SoSE. It aims to keep boys with a love of sport engaged in school. The teachers target about 10 students at risk of dropping out of school and 50 students as positive role models. They also endeavour to develop leadership skills and encourage participation in community projects. The DARE lesson on the day was a PE lesson, where I finally realised my limitations as I tried to keep up with 16-year-olds in 100-metre sprints. I have asked Michael Denmead to please give my apologies to our group’s captain, Noah, for my coming in last in the final sprint and costing our team valuable points.
I would like to thank Michael Denmead for his courage in inviting me, and Principal Colleen Matheson for approving it, and also all the teachers and students at Lyneham high school who accepted my presence. I am grateful for the opportunity and very much impressed with the dedication and professionalism of everyone I met at Lyneham high school. Finally, I did get my own back at Michael by inviting him to spend a day with me at the Assembly, which he did on the last Friday of the April school holidays.
Canberra and Region Heritage Festival
MR COE (Ginninderra) (6.35): I rise this evening to speak about the Canberra and Region Heritage Festival which has recently been held here in and around the capital. The festival was held from 10 to 24 April, and I would like to start by commending Gerhard Zatschler and his team for putting together what really was a very impressive program.
What was so good about the program was it involved so many different organisations. It demonstrated that government is not the sole repository of information, especially about history and about heritage. It did go to show that there are so many different organisations, whether they be community groups and even businesses, that hold and value their heritage and their history.
I think the history of Canberra is one which is very much about people that came to Canberra, whether that be in the early days well before it was called Canberra through to the early days of the capital and the construction of the capital or when the public service moved up from Melbourne. What is clear throughout that whole period was that you had people who really had a strong sense of service and a strong sense of commitment to their families, to their country and to the region as well. That really comes out when you look at some of the specific stories and read some of the tales of the last 150 or so years here and around Canberra.
Over the couple of weeks there were a number of different events, and I would like to highlight a few of those. There was a “heritage at risk” bus tour, which was put together by the National Trust ACT branch. They put together a bus tour which
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