![Story by DAVID BELL
MAYLANDS Peninsula Primary and Coolbinia Primary have been accepted into the Independent Schools program freeing them up to select their own staff and have a greater input as to where funds are spent.Maylands PPS principal Steve Salamon said it was a big win for the school.
“You can select staff that believe in the ethos and vision of your school, and they get to apply here because they want to be here,” he says (though quickly adds that he’s not displeased with the current staff).
“It provides us with a lot more flexibility to direct those resources to the areas we’ve identified; science is one of our priorities… literacy and numeracy, and information and communications technology.”
He says the decision was unanimous among staff and the P&C gave it the thumbs up.
Cris Sandri is principal of Highgate Primary School, which was admitted during the first round in September 2009.
“The experience has been wonderful, it’s been liberating, empowering, innovative, it’s just been fabulous,” she says.
“Certainly there are challenges, every time you go into something new there are challenges [but] it’s more challenges of what being independent actually means. We always had to make decisions, but before they were always couched in some regulation.
“But now, being able to really make decisions that cater for the needs of children and being able to really think much more broadly than we were able to before.”
Education minister Liz Constable said the new schools will undertake training over the next five months and become fully independent in 2011.
Labor shadow minister for education Michelle Roberts has previously expressed concern that the program could result in a two-tiered system of public schools, with independent schools nabbing all the good teachers.
She told the chook it hadn’t been seen on a wide scale so far as only one round of teacher selection had been affected, but as it’s rolled out she expected the problem to become more noticeable.
A third round of intakes will start in 2012.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7c9st8Ifh1qax0hmo1_500.jpg)
Story by DAVID BELL
MAYLANDS Peninsula Primary and Coolbinia Primary have been accepted into the Independent Schools program freeing them up to select their own staff and have a greater input as to where funds are spent.
Maylands PPS principal Steve Salamon said it was a big win for the school.
“You can select staff that believe in the ethos and vision of your school, and they get to apply here because they want to be here,” he says (though quickly adds that he’s not displeased with the current staff).
“It provides us with a lot more flexibility to direct those resources to the areas we’ve identified; science is one of our priorities… literacy and numeracy, and information and communications technology.”
He says the decision was unanimous among staff and the P&C gave it the thumbs up.
Cris Sandri is principal of Highgate Primary School, which was admitted during the first round in September 2009.
“The experience has been wonderful, it’s been liberating, empowering, innovative, it’s just been fabulous,” she says.
“Certainly there are challenges, every time you go into something new there are challenges [but] it’s more challenges of what being independent actually means. We always had to make decisions, but before they were always couched in some regulation.
“But now, being able to really make decisions that cater for the needs of children and being able to really think much more broadly than we were able to before.”
Education minister Liz Constable said the new schools will undertake training over the next five months and become fully independent in 2011.
Labor shadow minister for education Michelle Roberts has previously expressed concern that the program could result in a two-tiered system of public schools, with independent schools nabbing all the good teachers.
She told the chook it hadn’t been seen on a wide scale so far as only one round of teacher selection had been affected, but as it’s rolled out she expected the problem to become more noticeable.
A third round of intakes will start in 2012.
