Thursday, 23 June 2022

Adjournment

Panton Hill Pre School

Ms McLEISH (Eildon) (17:12): (6446) My matter is for the Minister for Early Childhood, and the action I seek is for the minister to provide support in every way possible to ensure the doors of the Panton Hill kindergarten stay open. The council has been unable to secure a provider to date since the withdrawal of Sparkways at the end of this year. The community and the council are fearful that this kindergarten in the small town of Panton Hill in the rural part of Nillumbik shire will be lost. Not only will this impact families in the area with young children, but it is also likely to impact the numbers at the Panton Hill Primary School in coming years. This cannot be allowed to happen. If the services are offered locally, people stay local. With the situation for the next year uncertain, enrolments for 2023 are currently low. Families and the council are in a pickle. The kindergarten is facing a number of issues and barriers. The community and the council are attempting to overcome these, but time is passing very quickly and no provider, solution or funding has been found and decisions really need to be made by the end of this month. The council are trying to support the community. They are attempting to find a new provider and have reached out to a number of different organisations, but they are finding that quite difficult.

The providers in that space are often looking for larger kindergartens with more students and more rooms. With the big providers, the early years managers want high numbers of rooms and children, and this is to the disadvantage of smaller communities. As you would think, a smaller community kinder is therefore less attractive. The kindergarten does offer a combined three- and four-year-old program. It is in a great bush setting. It is in Nillumbik’s green wedge. It has got wonderful open bush access. It includes nature exploration, camp fires and native wildlife. So there are a lot of pros for sending your children to this kindergarten, and it would be terrible to see its doors having to close. The future viability, as I said, is quite tricky.

There was a time when the provision of after-kinder care through the Panton Hill Primary School out-of-school-hours program actually directly impacted on the preschool’s enrolments. So when the program no longer had suitably qualified staff and the school had to stop that, registrations at the preschool declined. They have not been able to find an out-of-school-hours provider either, and they have been trying to recruit since December 2021. So small communities do find it a lot harder. I urge the minister to give this matter full consideration and really do everything that she can to support the community of Panton Hill, the kindergarten and indirectly the primary school.