<p> EDUCATION DROUGHT CONTINUES - NO AIDE IN SIGHT FOR PREP IN 2007 Monday January 29th 2007 was an historic day for Education in Queensland with over 29,000 four year olds attending their first day of PREP, as it rolls out to every primary school in the state. However, Beattie’s government is short changing our young and vulnerable children by supplying only a part time teacher’s aide to support our young children and assist the Prep teacher. Throughout the Prep trials, many problems were identified but not solved. In particular the lack of support to students and teachers because of insufficient teacher aide hours allocated to Prep, have lead to reports of children’s safety being compromised on numerous occasions. PREP-ALERT, other child advocacy groups and over 4000 people who signed a petition are still calling for full time teacher aides in every prep classroom as an essential component to ensure the safety and educational well being of our young children. If Mr Welford and Mr Beattie continue to ignore these pleas for full-time aides then all children in state primary schools could miss out on crucial educational assistance from teacher aides. Principals are being advised by the Minister to take aide hours from the rest of the school in order to provide additional support for Prep classes – reducing the much needed aide time for grades 1-7. How can this possibly be considered a smart decision? Of course we know that children will not die in Prep classrooms because of the lack of a full-time teacher aide. What is dying is Queensland’s opportunity to showcase a truly innovative, well supported and well resourced early childhood initiative. Prep is now our children’s introduction into the institution of school and Mr Beattie and Mr Welford are asking our 5 year olds to almost do it on their own. Yes, they will have a full-time teacher with them (at least when they are in the classroom because what happens at the lunch breaks is anyone’s guess) but one adult in a class or 25 five year olds won’t be providing much one-on-one support to anyone. Why is it that in 2007, 5 year olds are not entitled to the same level of support that was provided to 5 year olds in 2006? For the last 30 years children in state preschools were supported in their introduction to the schooling system by a full-time teacher and a full-time teacher aide, in a purpose built facility, with a fenced outdoor play area, sandpit, on-site toilet facilities, and open areas both indoor and out to allow for constructive play-based and investigative learning. Well meaning and dedicated prep teachers will work extra hard to try to make the best with what they’ve got – because that is what good teachers do. However, they can not do the impossible – they can not split themselves in two! The most important resource needed for this age group is adult support, to ensure the best possible educational, emotional and social outcomes. Despite publicly promising to monitor teacher aide time for prep and increasing aide time if needed, during a meeting with Prep–Alert on December 13th 2006, Mr Welford admitted that there are no plans in place to monitor the implementation of prep at any time in term 1. Mr Welford was unable to say when the monitoring would start, who would be doing it or who would be participating. We have called on the Minister to honour his promise and monitor Prep from day 1, ensuring that the feedback is gathered independently, transparently and from both teachers and parents. An independent review of the monitoring must then be done. With the help of parents, aides and teachers, Prep-Alert will try to do what the Beattie government won’t do and monitor what is happening in schools and prep classrooms from day one 29 January 2007. Prep-Alert will be asking all parents, teachers and community members to let us know of issues in schools. We want to know if prep classrooms are not ready, or if they are being used for classes other than prep, how many hours of teacher aide time are classes getting, is extra aide time being taken from other grades to help bolster prep, can teachers implement a play-based curriculum properly when they are on their own for half the day, are children placed in dangerous or unsafe situations because of a lack of adequate supervision, is there an outdoor play area that includes a sandpit, just how far away are the toilets, are there enough resources? Share your Prep experiences and concerns by emailing [email protected] or go to www.prep-alert.org and click on Have your Say? You do not have to use your real name. By ourselves we can change little but as a community of concerned parents, aides, teachers and citizens we can bring pressure to bear on a Government that at the moment is refusing to take our concerns seriously. Prep-Alert is now seeking a meeting with Premier Beattie.</p><p>Excerpts from Media Release issued by Prep-Alert 29 January 2007</p>