Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to explain how some of the needs based funding actually occurs in the electorate of Gilmore, where they have identified the needs of our children in low socioeconomic, disability and special-needs children and allocate some of those funds in that way. I am going to be asking the minister how we will be continuing that.

One of the best principals in the local area, who has done additional training, has said that funding not only transforms schools but has also transformed the entire community. They have used some of their allocation for a family-support worker, as the homelessness issue was becoming quite significant. We all know that the home environment is one of the ones with the greatest influence. They have done extensive staff training, including trauma training and STEM training, to bring their teachers into the current century. They have changed little classrooms into robotics labs, they have a video production room, and they have a 3D printing room, which has been absolutely fabulous. They have students who have extended themselves into amazing areas with STEM. We have language and literacy development, we have maths games from one end of the playground to another, and the children are all thriving. On Nelson Mandela's birthday last year, the students went and mowed lawns and tidied the yard of a person who had just been discharged from hospital. The community workaround has been making such a difference in the community. The children are learning a completely new set of values. In addition to that, because it is a very low socioeconomic region, they have introduced the idea of Sanctuary Point dollars, which is that when a parent does a couple of hours helping students learn to read or doing some maths, or helping in the library, or even working in the tuckshop, they earn Sanctuary Point dollars. So when that child cannot go to an excursion, they earn Sanctuary Point dollars to help fund that child to go on the excursion. This an amazing way in which they have used the additional funding they have been getting under the current system of needs-based funding. The children love seeing their parents involved in the school, the children's attendance rate has improved and their achievement rate has improved. The school is also supplying 80 breakfasts every day for kids in the school, and it is helping some of them get uniforms. This is the way we get needs-based funding for our children.

I wondered if the minister would be happy to answer a question on how our coalition government's needs-based funding model is assisting our schools, and in particular how this funding is helping local schools in my electorate. Many of them have done language and literacy development. How will our future Commonwealth funding help support the improvement of student outcomes?

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