Page 2133 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2018
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love about Franklin school is maintained as it grows to cater for new students in the area.
In north Gungahlin, we are building a new public school which will provide primary school education to a rapidly growing area. The new preschool to year 6 school in Taylor will initially cater to 176 preschool students and 600 primary school students, with capacity for further places as the school community grows. This includes planning for an additional 150 primary students and the potential for a year 7 to 10 expansion.
I was in Moncrieff over the weekend talking to people about the new north Gungahlin school. For new suburbs like Moncrieff, public schools play an incredibly important role in fostering our communities, not just in terms of education but also as a cultural and community hub. The new public school in Taylor is an active recognition of this integral role. The Taylor school will offer facilities for the local community to use, such as access to indoor areas for sport and recreation activities and space for community groups and organisations to hold meetings and events.
It is not just about making schools accessible to our communities; it is also about improving the accessibility of our schools to our students. Canberra is all about inclusiveness. We thrive on being Australia’s most inclusive city, and we show it time and time again, through our strong yes vote in the marriage equality postal survey; by hosting Australia’s first Reconciliation Day public holiday; and by being a refugee welcome zone. These are not just gestures; these are values that form our culture, a culture that flows through everything we do here in the ACT, right down to helping shape the way we design and plan our schools to ensure they are accessible to all students.
In this budget, we are supporting students with disability and complex health needs in our ACT public schools by investing $23.2 million through the needs-based funding model. We are increasing access to school psychologists by investing $7.3 million to employ 15 additional full-time psychologists, to support student wellbeing and mental health outcomes for students, parents and carers in our school communities. We are increasing the number of spaces in our schooling system, while at the same time delivering high quality learning spaces for our children to learn in. We are delivering 500 more student places in Gungahlin by expanding Amaroo, Gold Creek and Neville Bonner schools.
We make these significant investments at the same time as remembering we are in a transitioning economy. The future jobs of our children are likely to be starkly different from the jobs of today. We must continue to give students every opportunity possible to develop the skills that will be necessary for them to achieve in the modern world, while also valuing the difference and talents of every child.
Daniel Pink’s aptly named book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule The Future contends that the future belongs to the more creative minded as the more routine jobs in our society are overtaken by automation. Within this theme is recognition that while we are all predisposed towards particular skills, every skill is a
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