Wednesday, 10 September 2025

 Martha HAYLETT (Ripon) (10:08): Last Tuesday I had the honour of joining the Minister for Education at Ararat College to celebrate the start of construction on the school’s $4.6 million redevelopment. The project will transform the high school, building brand new classrooms, toilets, locker bays, wellbeing spaces and staff workspaces. It will mean Ararat kids will no longer have to learn in classrooms that are boiling hot in summer and freezing cold in winter, and they will instead have the state-of-the-art school facilities that they deserve. This project is dear to my heart, having fought hard for it together with former principal Ellie McDougall. I want to thank all of those who joined us last week and those who helped get us to this point, including acting principal Jen Penn, assistant principals Emma Henry and Cameron Kimber, school captains Aylah Knight and Daemon Savoia, school council president Janine Adams and staff member extraordinaire Kevin Bowles. By term 3 next year students and staff at Ararat College will have new, modern classrooms and a better learning environment for years to come.

It was also a pleasure last Tuesday to join the Minister for Education at a round table at Amphitheatre with principals from rural schools across the Pyrenees and Northern Grampians shires. We had a great, candid conversation about the issues and needs faced by our region’s tiniest schools, including their admin loads, transport needs, program goals and shared resourcing. I want to thank Mark McLay and Shane Mathison from Country Education Partnership for helping facilitate the chat and Louis Franc, Benjamin Gallagher, Emily Fithall, Matthew Smith, Cameron Carter and Kate Morecombe.