Schools and young people

Tuesday, 8th of September, I attended Rowville Primary School's production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Drum Theatre in Dandenong. A full-scale professional production. Great to see the kids engaged in the arts, and a credit to the staff and the parent volunteers who made it happen.

On the 7th of August, I was fortunate enough to catch Rowville Secondary College's production of Mary Poppins, and it was a fantastic production. I wasn't invited formally as a councillor. I bought my own tickets, as I do every year, for the family. We often have people in our primary school community that are part of the show or know people who are. So congratulations to the cast, crew and staff, the whole Rowville Secondary College community, on another really impressive production. And I know, speaking with representatives on the night, they have another big production planned for next year. Rowville Secondary College is very well known for its sports academy and its science and maths part over in my ward, but certainly its arts and culture program is really taking off. So congratulations to the school for its production of Mary Poppins this year.

And some local issues I'm picking up. I've had some correspondence quite recently about traffic and parking around Rowville Primary School and Scoresby Primary School, particularly at drop-off and pick-up time, which I intend to raise with the relevant officers. And I've also had some correspondence about some of the older footpaths that are surrounding and inside the Stud Park Shopping Centre, which is a mobility issue for some of the residents at Peppertree Hill Retirement Village there next to Stud Park. So, I'll be raising that one too, and we'll keep those residents updated as I go.

Councillor Duncan reminded me of the ward award that I presented at Rowville Primary School in the week before Christmas, at the final assembly of the year. That was the Tirhatuan award. I think we've all got a ward award, and I think most of them are based around students that go above and beyond when it comes to community spirit. And it was a great pleasure to join Anne Babich, the principal at Rowville, and her team to present that. With the excitement of school holidays approaching, there was an additional buzz as well.

On Friday the 12th, I attended the Rowville Primary School assembly to present the Tirhatuan award to a student there who was nominated for their outstanding community spirit and contribution to the school community. So that was a nice moment, and congratulations to Rowville principal Anne Babich and her assistant Shae White on another fantastic year, and for the great work they do at Rowville Primary School.

I'd like to acknowledge, and I did forget to do this at the last monthly meeting, all of the Joey Scouts across Knox who recently attended Kangaree, which was a two-night, three-day camp down at Bay Park Scout Camp in Mount Martha, run at the end of September. It was a huge milestone for many of our youngest scouts in Knox, with many experiencing their first time away from home, including my son. From all reports it was a fantastic event, building independence and life skills while sharing adventures and making friends. Special thanks to the excellent and caring leaders at 1st Rowville Scouts, and all the scout leaders and adult supporters across Knox who made this very formative event possible for our young people.

Tuesday the 16th, I had the privilege of joining students and staff at Rowville Secondary College for the opening of their new yarning circle at the West Campus. This is a very special place that was inspired by the students themselves and, even more impressively, was built by the students too. Uncle Perry Wandin, Wurundjeri Elder, led a fantastic smoking ceremony the day before he was here with us on National Citizenship Day. But it's a very special space at Rowville Secondary College that will now serve as a place to come together and share wisdom and knowledge for students and staff, and I do note that the Council supported the project directly. So congratulations to the staff here who helped bring that project to life.

Congratulations to Rowville Primary School, their incredible cast, crew and support staff. They had two sold-out nights of their Moana Junior school production at the Drum Theatre in Dandenong. And a shout out to our state member for Rowville, Kim Wells, who I think said on the night that it was about his 20th consecutive Rowville Primary School production. So I thought that was very impressive.

And another one: congratulations to Rowville Secondary College, and the cast and crew and supporting staff and volunteers, for their remarkable performance of We Will Rock You, a school production that had a run of sold-out shows over the past week and a bit. I attended with my family on a Saturday afternoon at an Auslan-interpreted session, and we were completely blown away by the quality of the production and the friendly faces across the school campus there. There's some incredible talent we have locally, and I wish everyone well with their careers in the performing arts.

I also bumped into Helen, who's the group leader of the 1st Rowville Scouts, and was able to have a look around the scout hall and look at some of the improvement work that they really need to get done and get cracking on. So, a remarkable effort by Gail and the Share Space team. I'm a big supporter of theirs. They do wonderful work at an incredible time of need across our community, so I commend all of those involved in organising that yesterday.

And just a shout out to Rowville Primary School. Back on Tuesday the 1st of April, I had the pleasure, and I think probably one of the highlights of being a councillor is attending primary schools when you get the chance to engage with students. The leading teacher of 6B invited me to attend and have a bit of a session with all the Grade 5 and 6 students, as they were studying governance and civic responsibility.

So it's fair to say they gave me a grilling across all manner of council matters. We went into the planning scheme, we talked about infringements and parking issues, and they had some ideas about where we could put dirt jumps and new playgrounds, and had some fantastic ideas. As always, for me, a real honour and a privilege and a highlight of being on Council is to have that sort of conversation, and as I promised them, I have fed some of their ideas back to the relevant staff here at Council. But a really impressive group of students, our future leaders of course. Some of them are planning to have a tilt at Council in, I think, about eight years' time, so I said I was looking forward to that, if I was still around.

Thank you, Mayor. And we are very pleased to have Councillor Considine back with us. Lovely words. And I just extend my acknowledgement to our young leaders of tomorrow in the gallery with us tonight. It's nice to look up and see some young smiling faces. That's not a reflection on anyone else in the gallery, but thank you for joining us. It's great to see you here.