Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My wife is not a great fan of the national curriculum. It is not that she does not appreciate that we have to have some sort of framework; it is just that as a prep teacher it is overcrowded and she finds it difficult to teach geography to a child that still needs to be taken to the toilet.

Clayton Cannes is the principal at Hermit Park State School. He argues with my wife on this. He says the national curriculum is the 'what' that you teach. How you teach it is the important thing. That is where the teacher expresses their skill, their art—much like a drummer in a band. Their job is to keep time. The cymbals across the top and so on—that is their art. That is what a great teacher does.

Hermit Park State School, where Clayton Cannes is the principal, is one of this government's independent public schools. We have three in Townsville: Hermit Park State School, Kirwan State High School and Pimlico State High School. I would also like to use this opportunity to say, 'get well very soon', to the principal of Kirwan State High School, John Livingston, a truly great educator in this country. He has been principal at that school for well and truly over 25 years. He is quite ill at the moment but he is getting better, and you cannot keep a good man down. So I wish him very well.

Recently I had the Assistant Minister for Education Senator Simon Birmingham from South Australia in Townsville. Whilst his portfolio concentrates pretty much on vocational education and training. I could not resist the opportunity of taking him to Hermit Park State School to see what Clayton does with his teachers; raising the levels of all his children, making sure their individual needs are taken care of; and the role the independent public school plays in that.

Clayton is a great educator. He is on the board of Microsoft and he travels the world. He loves our system, because it gives him the autonomy to do what he wants to do. If you watch his mapping, as he goes through NAPLAN, you can see how his school has improved year on year on year because they are able to properly target and properly use the resources.

They have a school board which understands the need for decisions to be made close to the school and for the benefit of the school. For example, regarding things like the allocation of resources, the state system may say that he has 16 hours of aid time to go across this number of classes. One student in one class may need more time. So, with agreement among the teachers and agreement amongst the school board and agreement amongst the school parents, for the benefit of the school, they are able to allocate those aid hours to that one particular student to get the better outcome for the student—to raise everybody.

Some public schools in this country are starting to exclude kids in order to raise their NAPLAN scores and that sort of thing. That is very wrong. What we must do is what Hermit Park State School, Kirwan State High School and Pimlico State High School are doing—raise the level of all the children in their care.

When I was an auctioneer working for the Pickles organisation, we found that, whilst the Pickles organisation head office in Belmore would set the framework around which we worked, they left it up to the individual manager of the place to make sure that their operation ran well. That was because: I knew what my people were capable of; I knew the talents and the skills of what my people had; and I knew how best to allocate them. The independent public school model gives the principal the impetus and the ownership of that school.

There is talk about the new Queensland state government—and congratulations to them on their win—pulling the funding for the independent public school model. I urge the new Queensland government, the new Minister for Education to sit down and talk to the educators and parents in those schools about the benefits of the independent public school model and about the way they are raising the standards of their children and about how they are giving their kids the best opportunity to get great results.

That is what we must do as an organisation and that is what we must do as people who believe in education; empower decision-makers at that local level. Senator Birmingham was so impressed with what we saw at that school. And the kids love going to school. One of my neighbours' kids goes to that school. My kids do not go to that school. It is a great organisation. It is a great thing to do for your children. I thank the House.

Senate adjourned at 20:00