Wednesday, 18 February 2026

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (09:48): Victoria is the Education State, and Labor want all of our children to receive a high-quality education. Programs such as our nation-leading, structured synthetic phonics program and our promotion of explicit teaching in the classroom are just two examples of how we prioritise education, and if you take a look at our NAPLAN results, they are having results and are improving our NAPLAN results. But we are also committed to ensuring that our kids have great school buildings to learn in. There are three schools that have got upgrades underway in the Southern Metropolitan Region: Gardenvale Primary School has just appointed a builder for their upgrade and modernisation project, upgrading and extending block A, fixing things like the library, improving the school administration and creating new learning workspaces; Hampton Primary School is in the design phase for the new gymnasium and performing arts centre and the relocation of modular classrooms and some infill classrooms in their B block; and we have Caulfield South Primary School, where a builder has been appointed, and some renders have just been released of what their new, competition-grade gymnasium will look like – a modernisation project giving students better physical education and performing arts spaces. We were at Narrarrang Primary School recently, with the Minister for Education, the member for Albert Park and Mr Berger, to look at the brand new primary school servicing the Fishermans Bend and Port Melbourne communities. The Allan Labor government supports students and teachers with better learning environments so they can fulfil their potential.