Page 243 - Week 01 - Thursday, 14 February 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MS BERRY: There have been no decisions made by the government about changes to housing on that site. There are no plans at this stage to have any housing other than private housing on that site.
MS LE COUTEUR: Minister, how is this consistent with the affordable housing strategy announced last year which committed, I thought, to 15 per cent of public and affordable housing in both greenfield and infield development?
MS BERRY: That is part of the new affordable housing plan. These particular housing dwellings are part of the existing, and soon to be completed, renewal program.
Schools—bullying
MS LEE: My question is to the Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development. At the Tuggeranong school that has been in the media recently it has been reported that a child has been choked into unconsciousness on the playground, another student cornered in a toilet and swung around by a broken arm and at least one child hospitalised with concussion. Minister, what are you doing to stop this happening tomorrow and into the future and how will parents be able to know that their children going to this school are safe?
MS BERRY: As I have described in the Assembly this week the ACT government takes issues of violence in schools very seriously and is implementing programs around positive behaviours for learning. This is a very successful program that is rolled out across New South Wales schools. It is about creating an environment with the whole school community. It is not about addressing just single issues at a time but making sure that school communities can have positive and safe environments for all children and the staff who work there as well as the families that attend those schools.
It is important to note that the positive behaviours for learning program has only just started being implemented at Theodore school. The families involved in the individual issues raised in the Canberra Times are being supported by the directorate, and it is addressing the issue to make sure those students are supported as well.
As I said, last night the community met with the Education Directorate to understand very clearly what was happening at that school at Theodore, what the directorate was doing around making sure the community there is well informed about processes in place now and how they and their teachers can be informed and supported through this journey.
MS LEE: Minister, what counselling or additional training has been provided to the teaching staff to ensure that there is adequate supervision and management of these students, and did the positive behaviours for learning program start after you became aware of the issues, not before?
MS BERRY: Yes. This was not one of the initial schools that had the positive behaviours for learning program implemented. There are around 51 schools out of the 88 public schools in the ACT that are implementing the positive behaviours for
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video