Updated Primary School Map

Kambah High would not be closing if Stanhope et al gave a rats about social equity. It shows how far the mighty have fallen, that they can close this school and think their justifications are reasonable. KambahAdvocate my heart goes out to you.

Al, perhaps ‘disadvantaged’ is the right buzzword. I mean the people that probably live in an ordinary home in an ordinary suburb but within those walls are struggling to make the basics: they pay the rent, but then find it hard to get their kids school shoes, don’t get the school book pack on time or ever, would eg find it hard to find bus fare money to get their kids to school if they suddenly had to because their local one closed; perhaps they never go to the movies or hire DVDs or go out for a meal, let alone buy lunch at work or give their kids a lunch order; or don’t go anywhere at all (ringing in sick?) some days as there is no money for petrol or bus fare.

Not noticable to others unless you’ve been there. So, removing local facilities like a school or regular bus service (while justifying spending megabucks on gardens of babylon or al grassby statues), not only creates another layer of disadvantage for those already barely managing, but is despicable and heartless. PS This kind of disadvantage has nothing to do with intelligence.

Actually no Mael.

Hubby is posted to Sydney and I’m thinking of Qld.

We’ve never moved from Canberra as he commutes from Sydney.

Seems more related to the defence posting cycle rather than an actual protest move Nys…

Hence my current “plan” to move interstate.

Miz what the hell are ‘ordinary under-privileged people’? You seem to be suggesting that ‘privilege’ whatever that is, is a socio-economic thing which is crap – I’d suggest that people like that deserve to be ignored ‘in this town’. No one in this territory is forced to be poor and stupid – in fact I’d suggest that to attain such status you’d pretty well have to be deliberately trying. Furthermore, these brain-dead, piss poor dolts you speak of as the ‘ordinary under-privileged’ are probably just the kind of rancid little minority that the Standope government would crawl over broken glass to pander to.

Unfortunately, ordinary under-privileged people are scoffed at and ignored in this town. (They don’t exist, right, because the stats say how rich we all are – bollocks). But if you are some other kind of minority they pander to you big time.

They should get back to implementing (instead of undoing) what Canberra was intended to be – a well-planned social mix, not a blatant haves/have nots society. I’m so disgusted with the things happening here that I could spit. Social justice has been trampled on in so many decisions lately, and what’s worse is that the decision-makers are all self-congatulatory about it because all they see is financial transactions and economic units. TREES have more rights in this town than some less advantaged sectors of the community.

Thinly veiled behind Barr’s repetitive rhetoric, are a bunch of lies.

He lied when he said this new plan will address the drift to private education. It’s highly suspicious that Barr has chosen to close Mount Neighbour Primary, with its known degree of disadvantage, and yet leave open the pre-school,which he knows has traditionally had a 90% private school flow-on. He was offered a viable alternative to arrest that drift. 13/12/06: He said “No!”

He lied when he said he cared about disadvantaged families. It’s extremely suspicious that the last disadvantaged school in Kambah (Urambi) is now earmarked for closure in 2011, and the only public school not disadvantaged (Taylor) remains unthreatened.

How sad that he thinks we are stupid enough not to notice.

Kambah, the suburb with by far the highest number of people living in poverty, will see all disadvantaged students ultimately forced into a super-school (world-wide known to be the worst educational setting for disadvantaged kids), the one advantaged public school remaining untouched, and the private school aided in maintaining its enrolment figures because it now has its own pre-school right next door.

“Choice and Diversity?” “Social equity?” Huh?

Minister Barr, all the pretty marketing rhetoric you can spew forth will never veil the blatant truths – that your party clearly has a propensity to be influenced by the needs of the wealthy, that you are happy to ignore the needs of the disadvantaged, and that your oratory and the Social Plan are more of the same well-dressed lies that we are sadly getting used to hearing.

those preschools will be feeders

If you believe some, the new super schools will become feeders for the new prison.

about the whole urambi being next to the super school, i read somewhere that they’d have to close it in 2010, like what they’re having to do to some of the schools in west belconnen..

Don’t forget that Stromlo will now be a 6-10 school starting next year.

So Arawang won’t be “entirely” overloaded.

I think mt neighbour pre will be with Urambi primary

those preschools will be feeders and under teh wing of other close primary schools

Have they explained how the whole preschool thing is going to work?

They say all preschools must be part of a primary school by 2008 – presumably so they can get rid of existing pre-school buildings.

But what of preschools like Hackett, Weston and Chifley, which are listed to stay open, but won’t have a primary school to join onto? Both Hackett and Chifley seem to be in a babyboom, so they aren’t closing the preschools, but assuming a govt preschool can’t join a private school, how will it work?

Actually, a lot of kids in Pearce attend the Catholic school. This is because the Pearce public pre-school is located right next door. I can only imagine that Chifley pre-school will also feed into Sacred Heart now that there the Catholic school is the only one within walking distance.

Sacred Heart seems to be a very good school. However, if the ACT Govt were serious about keeping kids in public education, they would provide public schools.

I was one of the writers of the Melrose submission.

As someone who writes submissions to Government (tenders), and regularly receives non-favourable responses, I feel for you.

When you put a lot of time into something, it’s natural to feel that everyone should agree with your view, and respond accordingly. Unfortunately, it often doesn’t work out this way.

I know there isn’t alot of tolerance for a “but the process sucked” kind of argument, but basically, it did and it has lead to some poor outcomes for ACT education.

Once the hitlist was announced pretty much the only thing affected schools could do was attempt to stave off closure. There was very limited scope to step back and take a broader look at education provision, to bring other schools that had not been ‘named’ into the mix. I guess the Government would have had another six month consultation on their hands and politically this was unpalatable.

I read the Melrose submission and I thought the Lyons / Melrose amalgamation sounded like a winner. I am not sure what purpose turning a small school like Lyons into an even smaller P-2 school. I would have thought it would just hasten it’s demise. Melrose is already the result of a Chifley and Pearce Primary amalgamation, so perhaps that turned them off, but do most Pearce kids now attend Torrens?

Anyway .. commiserations on the bad news emd.

Waramanga is in the Weston Creek district. This means that Chifley/Pearce kids do not have automatic right of enrolment at Arawang. I checked with DET in October. Arawang is also a very popular school and unlikely to take out-of-area enrolments. I believe the re-drawing of PEA’s (to be released 8 Jan) will not include changes to district boundaries. Pity, as I hear Arawang is a great school with many cultural similarities to Melrose that would make for an easier transition.

As for Mawson, its numbers are being monitored, with the threat that it will also close. Melrose parents would be unlikely to send their children to another potentially closing school.

I was one of the writers of the Melrose submission. We did propose an amalgamation of Lyons with Melrose, and that we share our principal with Curtin. This would have put our enrolments at 100% of capacity in a school that has had lots of money and time put into maintaining great facilities, and would have avoided the “dead zone” shown on the map. I have no idea why it didn’t fly with Barr. It’s clearly a political decision, not based on what’s actually best value for money or best educational outcome.

You can download the Melrose submission from the Save Melrose website.

Dare I ask how safe the pedestrian underpass is?

Arawang is going to be a packed school with most of Weston Creek as well as all the Chifley kids -demountables anyone? Or maybe if numbers pick up at Lyons they won’t actually go to P-2 afterall.

Re: Underpass between Chifley and Waramanga

Thanks, I didn’t know that. Still looks fairly ordinary coverage for Chifley I reckon.

Re: reponse

It’s been there for since June and noone else noticed (or bothered to tell me). Fixed now. Any other typos?

Talk about a freudian slip in the sub-title of the page that is linked to:

A reponse to the plan to close 39 schools in the ACT

reponse?

There is an underpass under Tuggeranong parkway, between Chifley and Waramanga. So, those kids who choose to do so, can travel safely to school. Those who choose to dodge 100 km/h traffic have that option available to them.