Petition to Save Tharwa School
The ACT Government is set to close Tharwa Primary and Pre-Schools. Tharwa is the oldest school in the ACT with much historical and heritage value. Tharwa primary delivers real educational outcomes for families who have chosen to educate their children in a small school environment.
To close Tharwa would be to ‘close down’ the Tharwa community, which has been recovering from the devastating 2003 bushfires.
Please sign our petition to support the Tharwa Primary School and the Tharwa community.
Tharwa School Motto - Students In Harmony With Each Other And The Environment Experiencing Success and Challenge - A Century of Learning 1899-1999
March 25th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I want to send my kids there!!!
December 9th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
The ACT Government’s decision to close 39 schools beggars belief. I cannot think of a more socially disruptive and destructive policy. Who are the fools who think this is a good idea?
Please find below an email I sent to Getup and to everyone in my address book on behalf of you who are affected by this stupid and callous decision. I live in a small community myself, and know what disruption there would be to current and future generations if the local school were to be threatened.
Good Luck. and may good sense prevail.
Dear All,
I would like to bring to your attention an autocratic, socially irresponsible decision by the ACT government, made for financial reasons and introduced by stealth, that will affect thousands of small children for years to come and cause major social disruption in the ACT.
The current ACT Government is going through the ludicrous step of closing 39 public schools, many of them in thriving small communities. The idea is to set up large, central schools and cram students into these sheep pens.
This is disastrous from an educational viewpoint, but even more so from a social viewpoint.
For many small communities the focal point to community building is the local primary school, where people and their children meet, form ongoing relationships and join together in local causes. To wipe out 39 schools in one fell swoop is socially disruptive, unnecessary, and damaging to local communities. People who have bought houses near schools thinking they could walk their children to school, people who have entered their children in local preschools hoping they would get to know their future classmates, teachers and students already who have already formed ties with small local schools are in for a massive upheaval.
The scary thing is that this is going through with barely a whimper. A few letters published in local newspapers, teachers being intimidated by their employers not to speak out, an education minister and government that don’t seem to care that no one wants this.
No-one thinks this is a good idea. This immensely socially disruptive policy is being implemented purely to save money, and with no apologies. There have been a few lame attempts to defend the policy but it is blatantly obvious that the well being of the next generation of primary school children is being sacrificed to improve the budget, so that money can be spent on higher priorities, like a speedway for example.
The ACT Government aimsd to replace these small schools with large “super schools”, however the disadvantages of the type of education are well documented. In the US, where the large central school experiment has been played out to it’s disastrous but obvious consequences it has been found to cause increases in social isolation, peer pressure, and a reduced ability to relate to people not of the same age, clothing and hairstyle. Embedding children with large groups of the same age has been well documented to create an insular environment, retarding emotional development. As this group approaches 200 the psychological “tribal limits” are reached and children cannot relate well to those outside their immediate peer group, who are considered “other”.
Anyway, the purpose of this email is not to go into the various psychological reasons why this is a disruptive and completely irresponsible social policy, the reasons should be self evident. (You don’t need a double blinded crossover trial to tell you that parachutes make a difference to those falling from planes.)
This thing has got me angry on behalf of those affected. I am angry because it is such a retrograde step in education and so against well accepted developmental and educational principles. I am angry because of the social disruption to the thousands of people whose schools, and whose children’s schools simply will not be there next year.
I am thankful that I live outside (on the edge) of the ACT, and the small local school that my wife went to, that my children go to (the same teachers), and that unmistakeably binds together the local community, will not be destroyed by misguided and simple minded bean counters who do not have the best interests of the community at heart.
Regards
Dr Stephen Myers
December 1st, 2006 at 1:49 pm
I was a student at Tharwa Primary over 10 years ago and was a Tharwa resident for many years after I graduated from the school. I could not have asked for a better start to life. The schools approach to learing encouraged individuality, creativity and acceptance of people from all walks of life. All the people I know who attended Tharwa primary over the years have grown into well rounded, successful individuals. The school is not only a learning institution but the heart of the village community. PLEASE DON”T CLOSE DOWN THE BEST SCHOOL IN THE ACT!
December 1st, 2006 at 12:59 am
Small school should not be lost– part of Australia’s history and values. Tharwa school is an ideal situation for students from larger less personal schools to visit. An example of what education should be.
School is the heart of the community.
November 14th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Save our wonderful small schools. We are going through the same problem here in Grafton NY. We will continue to fight for what is best for the students not what fits the budget formula. I hope you do too.
November 5th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Living in Conder, our choice for Tharwa Preschool was a deliberate decision due to the learning environment Tharwa offers. Our two children were given a wonderful introduction to formal education. They flourished in the small-school environment and have gone on to become confident and happy children who enjoy learning and think school is fun!
I hope the government will recognise the value in retaining a small-school option in their education system.
August 29th, 2006 at 10:52 am
I like the Stanhope billboard “Bush Capital with NO rural schools, Towards 2020″ Very Funny!
August 15th, 2006 at 9:57 am
To close a school that has been the heart of the Tharwa community for over 100 years is akin to a criminal act. Having attented Tharwa school for preschool through to year 5 I fully understand the amazing experience that is a childhood in Tharwa.
In situations such as these the size of the school is irrelevent next to the benefit it can offer to its students. The size of the school and the classes enabled students to develop close relationships with each other and with the staff. These relationships last a lifetime, unlike the relationships formed in larger schools.
There have been suggestions that larger schools would offer a better range of opportunities to students. Whilst this is the case for some small-middle size schools, Tharwa is a diferent story. The size of Tharwa actually gives students more ‘room’ to develop as individuals, learn at their own pace (be it faster or slower than the other children in their year), and gives students a sense of community, something that is not developed in many larger schools.
We must do everything in our power to save this wonderful school. We must give our children a future, and this school is the one I would choose for my children.
August 14th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
As a former student of Tharwa Primary School, and a Tharwa community member I would like to offer my support for the Save Our Schools effort. My brief time at the school is still a fond memory, and I have always appreciated how the school brought the community together. My experience of the school was that it was a creative, vibrant and unique institution with a fun atmosphere for learning that celebrated it’s agricultural surroundings. Major advantages were the strong sense of community and a strong relationship with staff, all in all exceeding any other public system that I have experienced. It would be an enormous social, historical, and communal loss to have the school close - it really is the heart of small Tharwa, and I am very proud to say that I once attended.
August 11th, 2006 at 11:49 am
I have a child presently at Tharwa Preschool and would have liked him to continue on to Tharwa Primary school. We are in area for Tharwa School and William is my third child to attend the school. However, the absolutely unworkable decision of announcing whether the school will close after 6 Dec 06 for the following year has meant that I have had no choice but to accept a position at another school.
I am both appalled and disappointed how badly this issue has been handled, with no thought to the teachers or parents throughout the ACT & surrounding region who will have work and live with these decisions.
The timeframe is completely unrealistic and unkind to all involved.
Not to mention the fact that the school is the center of the Tharwa community.