Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to rise and speak today about the wonderful work being done at the Bethania Lutheran Primary School. Bethania Lutheran Primary School is just one of the many great primary schools in my electorate of Forde. I would like to take this opportunity to mention the great work of their teachers, who are working together to develop a culture of innovation, motivation, collegiality and trust. Because the school have identified that their students are contemporary learners, they understand that they need teachers who embrace the importance of aligning effective learning spaces with relevant, high-quality learning to promote positive outcomes for students. The school achieves this by incorporating agile learning spaces with experiences that use a variety of digital technologies and progressive approaches to teaching to transform the way students learn.

Every year I go around to the various schools in my electorate and meet with all the principals. It is an opportunity to touch base with them and speak to them about the terrific work they're doing in their various schools. At one of these visits to the Bethania Lutheran Primary School we talked about how the teachers are engaging with students and looking for these new ways to learn. If we want our next generation of leaders to be creative thinkers, to take risks and to be problem solvers, we need teachers prepared to give them the tools, the resources and the environment to do that. Bethania Lutheran Primary School has successfully created this culture of collaboration, collegiality and continued professional growth. The teachers have become role models for their students as they demonstrate how they never stop learning.

This is one of the many schools where we see from the teachers this shared vision of learning and growing as professionals. The greatest benefit of this goes to the students. The students win in developing their capacity. We see the opportunity for them to develop their full potential, which is what we always want to see for our kids. I spoke the other day about the new pod at Coomera Anglican College. As part of that new building there is an indoor dome to fly drones. We see many schools across our electorates taking these innovative steps. The best part of it is that it is tailored for each school community in accordance with what their student cohort needs.

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