A name change for a Bunbury Primary School marks a back to nature playing area for the children, and a $1.6 million safe-house for teachers and staff, just in case the kids turn feral.
Education Minister Liz Constable officially named Maidens Park Primary School and opened the school’s new administration building in Bunbury today. The School previously shared the uninviting name of the unfashionable suburb of Withers. The new name is attributed to an adjacent reserve of natural bushland, and has no association with the fulsome sandstone maidens guarding the entrance to an adjacent suburb.
Features of the new playground allow students to climb trees and rocks, make cubbies in forest areas, and dig in sand. This will no doubt be a boon to school bullies looking for somewhere discrete to do their work, cache weapons, and to hide the bodies.
The obvious benefit of “natural” playgrounds, besides providing places to hold hostages and hone survival skills, is that they don’t cost any money. No cost was mentioned for the playground, while the new administrative building to protect staff from children returning to a natural state came with a hefty price tag.
Other schools are being encouraged to apply for funding of up to $20,000 to revitalise play spaces, but not all schools have an adjacent block of bushland they can fence off. The announcement indicated that the funding was targeted at public schools, so it is not clear if private schools will have the opportunity to apply.
While at Maidens Park Primary School, Dr Constable announced the State Government would spend an additional $4million on school playgrounds for schools in disadvantaged areas over the next four years. So if your school gets a new playground, you know you are living in a disadvantaged area.
What better way to deal with disadvantage than to teach the children to leave the hazards of the open savannah and return to the trees.