Wednesday, 25 May 2022

Skye Primary School

Ms KILKENNY (Carrum) (19:06): (6379) My adjournment matter is for the Premier. The action I seek is for the Premier to join me on a visit to Skye Primary School to meet with the wonderful students, teachers and support staff and to celebrate their brand new competition-grade gymnasium as well as the major refurbishment to their learning and administration areas. These significant upgrades are part of the Andrews Labor government’s commitment to making Victoria the Education State, and these upgrades are making this great local school even better, providing students at Skye Primary with the very best facilities—facilities they can be proud of, and that is really important.

I well remember back in 2018 visiting Skye Primary with the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education. We met with some of the school leaders: Sarah Manshanden, Ari Sapolu, Harry Keher and Eloise Ryan. They had a presentation for us, setting out the case on why students at Skye Primary needed a competition-grade basketball stadium for basketball and netball, for sport, for school assemblies and for use by local community clubs. They were great advocates for their school and great ambassadors for all of the Skye Primary students who would follow them in the years ahead, and their case was very, very compelling.

Fast-forward one year to 2019, and I was back at Skye Primary announcing to a very excited student assembly that $7.8 million had been allocated in the state budget to upgrade their school. I will never ever forget those kids’ cheers—cheers of utter joy and excitement, cheers that nearly lifted the roof off, cheers because their school was getting an upgrade. This made them feel pretty special, and special they are. I am so proud to be able to deliver this significant investment at Skye Primary, and I cannot wait to see this project done and to see the happiness and the pride this investment brings to the students and school community at Skye Primary. I look forward to the Premier visiting this fabulous local school and meeting the terrific students and hearing from them just how important this upgrade is to them. I also hope that Eloise, Harry, Sarah and Ari and many other students who made the case for this upgrade at Skye Primary are able to come back to see their legacy.