Tuesday, 21 February 2023

 Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:00): I rise to update the house on a recent visit that I attended at a fantastic public school in my region, Templestowe Heights Primary School. I was really pleased to attend and visit the school and see our newest and littlest Victorians moving on up from kindergarten to start their first year at primary school, in grade prep. And to celebrate this important milestone I was fortunate enough to be able to hand each and every prep student a fantastic prep bag full of educational and engaging resources. The theme for this year’s prep bags is ‘Moving on up’, and it celebrates the transition for our littlest Victorians from kindergarten to school. Amongst the fantastic and engaging resources that are contained within that bag are some books: Bedtime Sorted! by Jimmy Rees, Stellarphant by James Foley, The Biscuit Maker by Sue Lawson, What Colour is the Sea by Katie Stewart and The Two-hearted Numbat by Ezekiel and Ambelin Kwaymullina. It was a fantastic visit to the school, and I was also fortunate enough to see the recently and newly completed state-of-the-art science, technology, arts and maths building and upgraded library and administration and outdoor areas, which was made entirely possible thanks to and courtesy of the Andrews Labor government investment of $13 million.

Also of course, most importantly, whenever I go and do these fantastic prep visits we always get the frisbee out of the prep bag and make sure that students give their frisbee a test drive, because as we know, when you are little it is really important to make sure you learn through play. So it was really good to see the kids enjoying not only the educational resources but having a play with the frisbees on the oval as well.