South expansion

It is the most significant expansion of public preschools in NSW history.

Specific details about the Deniliquin project are yet to be released.

But it has already elicited much excitement among the school community and dominated discussions at this week’s South School P&C AGM.

Lisa Pyle, who was elected president at that meeting, said the project was not just good news for the Deniliquin South School community.

She said with a lack of childcare and preschool places in Deniliquin, young families would be the biggest beneficiaries of the announcement.

“It is going to be very exciting,” she said.

“We’re yet to learn all the details, but we can see this as a development that will ease the transition of preschoolers into our school - assuming that those using the preschool send their children to Deniliquin South.

“Already being familiar with the environment would be easier on the students.

“As a parent, if I had children that age, it would certainly be an option I would be looking at.

“In discussions with other parents, we noted a move to have children attend more preschool days before starting primary school, but our local services simply don’t have the places to accommodate all the children for more days.

“More places can only be beneficial for the whole town."

NSW Member for Murray Helen Dalton said almost 50 per cent of new public preschools to be delivered over the next three years will be in

regional and rural communities.

As well as Deniliquin, the Murray electorate will receive two new preschools in Leeton and one each at Beelbangera and Hanwood.

Mrs Dalton said co-locating the preschools with existing schools ensures children are ready for Kindergarten, will help busy working families with cost-of-living pressures, and will allow them to avoid the double drop-off.

“This is great news for communities in the electorate,” she said.

“It will enable parents who are unable to afford other types of childcare to rejoin the workforce."

In a joint press release, NSW Premier Chris Minns and Minister for Education and Early Learning Prue Car said sites had been selected by a NSW Department of Education Panel, overseen by an independent chair and probity adviser.

Decisions were based on “rigorous assessment criteria” which considered educational need, child development and socio-economic data, preschool demand, infrastructure feasibility and insights gained through consultation.

Mrs Dalton said the next education commitment she wants to see from the Minns Government is a solution to the “drastic teacher shortage” in Murray electorate schools, particularly high schools.