A wonderful day of pride
Congratulations to the Rotary Club of Eaglehawk organising committee who arranged Australia Day breakfast and celebrations in Canterbury Park, Eaglehawk this year.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Also for the many wonderful volunteers who make this all possible.
The program was excellent with talented artists, uplifting music from Eaglehawk Citizens Brass Band and the inspiring music and dancing by the beautiful young Karen dancers in their colourful outfits.
Congratulations to both Eaglehawk award recipients.
Ruth Browning, Golden Square
Children aren’t children
Are the "children" who are behaving so badly in youth justice centres really children?
In many cases, I think not. The legal definition of "child" should be altered. The children that I see today are far more mature that the kids of my day.
Ian Braybrook, Castlemaine
New school welcome news
It is pleasing to see that the state government has finally seen the need to build a school to support the youth that may drop out of school.
The building of the Flexible Learning Complex facility is long overdue, and should have been a part of the education system well before today.
Governments and the education Department should be supporting all levels of education, and Anglicare Education formerly (St Luke's) is to be commended for stepping in and tackling this problem.
Unfortunately, mainstream education is not suitable for all levels, and I am not saying that students aren't entitled to it, but it will be a better outcome for all students if they learn in an environment comfortable to their needs and gain the maximum benefits from the system.
Mainstream education has been absorbing these students in their system but has put a strain on teachers to cover all aspects to be delivered in a comprehensive way for the best outcome for all students and staff.
They have required and needed more classroom support to cover the students needing that extra assistance, and that then has a negative outcome for the other students.
Comments made that "there are diverse young people in our community and what we call mainstream is not for everybody, we need flexibility to offer different programs to suit the needs of our young people”.
Then one must change the direction and include more hands-on technical subjects to engage students better instead of increasing maths/English, which I am not saying are not important, and ditch the wasted time and effort on the Naplan testing that is well documented as a waste of time with no valuable benefits or outcomes.
Education has been on the downward spiral ever since the late Joan Kirner and the Labor government changed the structures of technical schools, and in recent times with the Labor Party and John Brumby and Ron Lake and the whiz-bang Bendigo Education Plan has been a total disaster as far as classroom work and activities are concerned.
The only benefit was the rebuilding of all secondary schools except Golden Square, but now the government is talking about building another one at the La Trobe University, which is totally ridiculous.
The money could and should be spent more wisely on the region’s secondary schools and all other levels of learning in the government sector schools.
It's time to put proper solutions and criteria into place talk to the people who are expected to deliver these outcomes, not people sitting at a desk away or never been in the classroom environment, and bean counters that have got no empathy for what is actually needed to resolve the situation.
It's that lost word that doesn't get used too often; commonsense.
