Thursday, 23 March 2023

 James NEWBURY (Brighton) (14:33): (104) My question is to the Minister for Education, and I ask: when will the government provide Berendale Specialist School in Hampton East the support they need? Berendale Specialist School in Hampton East is a wonderful school for my community, and it is getting bigger. Katandra in North Road, Bentleigh, is closing, and the kids at the school are moving across to Berendale. It is a wonderful opportunity to create a big school community in our Hampton East area. The government has committed some funding to the first part of the junior school upgrade so that 40 kids coming into the school will have a space, but the hundred kids that are already there have what would probably be most kindly described as quite outdated spaces, and throughout the enormous works process there will not be any space for those kids. For example, the basketball space and the oval will both be taken offline, and so kids have nowhere to go. (Time expired)