How the proposal will affect Tharwa school
The following explanation is taken directly from the ACT Dept of Education and Training Website “Toward 2020:Renewing our Schools”
Tharwa Primary School
The current enrolment at Tharwa is 25 and the school is operating at 50% capacity. The school is located in a heritage listed building with limited capacity for expansion.
43% of students living in the area attend the school and it attracts 64% of enrolments from out of area.
In 2006 there are 4.05 teaching staff and 0.6 administrative staff employed at the school.
How will the proposal affect Tharwa Primary School?
Tharwa Primary School would close at the end of 2006. If the school does close:
• Priority enrolment areas will be redefined to ensure your child has a right of enrolment at nearby schools.
• Discussions and consultation with parents and the new school will take place around relocation of any special programs that are offered at the school such as language immersion, music/band, or before and after school care.
• Discussions and consultation with parents would take place around relocation and/or safe storage of items of historical significance and school memorabilia.
• Parents and school staff will be consulted, kept informed and supported through the transition phase.
The Tuggeranong Region
To learn more about the Tuggeranong Region of ACT Government schools and details of how the proposal will affect other schools in the region a regional document is available.This document also provides advice on the Community Consultation process the Government is undertaking about the proposal. The consultation period has begun.
You can pick up a copy at any of the schools in the region. Or you can download a copy Click here
Community Forum
The community forum for the Tuggeranong region will be held at 7 pm on Thursday, 29 June at Caroline Chisholm High SchoolInformation evening
Specific information evenings will also be held in each school. The school will be advising parents and carers of the details and these will also be listed on ‘What’s New’ as they become available.
Further Information
Further information is available from the Towards 2020: Renewing our Schools website and this is updated as more information becomes available. ‘What’s New’ will provides updated information as it becomes available.
June 7th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
[quote]The current enrolment at Tharwa is 25 and the school is operating at 50% capacity. The school is located in a heritage listed building with limited capacity for expansion.[/quote]
What they don’t tell you is that school capacity of 50 includes the primary school AND the preschool. But the 25 is only the primary school enrolment.
The current figures are closer to:
Primary school:
29 students/35 capacity = 82% capacity
Preschool:
14 students/15 capacity = 93% capacity
Combined:
43 students/50 capacity = 86% capacity
What’s with this figure of 50%?
June 8th, 2006 at 7:37 am
A small but significant point in the proposal is that the reforms will
ensure that there is a “choice of school models”. this seems ironic, as
if you look through the list of schools, they are all to become large
conglomerates, and in actual fact, Tharwa is a different model that
would give this “choice of model”-of a smaller sized school in a rural
setting.
June 8th, 2006 at 7:38 am
At a meeting called for the Preschool sector today 7th June, the
following point was made by the ACT Director of Schools,
Joanne Howard. Currently in ACT the majority -”suprisingly high
percentage”- of people are choosing to school their children outside
their local zoned area. She reflected that this may be due to the fact
that as the trend increases that people’s work place locations become
further afield, parents are choosing schools closer to their work
place. The proposal apparently took this into account, producing a
model based on providing a similar range of schools in each of 8 areas
across Canberra, instead of the 4 areas they are currently divided
into.
I reflected that in Tharwa’s case the opposite occurs-people are
choosing to actually drive away from their place of work to school
their children at Tharwa by preference, because of what Tharwa has to
offer.