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

Today I'd like to pass on my sincere congratulations to Bethania Early Education Centre in my electorate of Forde for recently being awarded an accreditation as a Little Scientist House. Little Scientist is a federally funded professional development program for early-childhood educators which offers training in the delivery of a variety of hands-on STEM subjects, and these workshops are for the children aged three to six years old. The concepts are simple, and the programs are fun based, but that does not take away from the significant achievement it is to be recognised officially as a Little Scientist House.

In fact, I had the pleasure of meeting Little Scientist program quality coordinator Hayley Bates during the certification ceremony last week. Ms Bates is a self-proclaimed hard marker who actually rejects almost 50 per cent of the childcare centre applications for the program. Indeed, it's only those centres that truly display a passion and a commitment to educating our very youngest in science and mathematics that pass her quality assurance test. The Little Scientist program is a great program, and last week I had the pleasure of taking part in some of the experiments with the kids, which was always great fun. I would like to congratulate, again, Bethania Early Education Centre and also the Woodlands Early Education Centre, who also received the same certification.