95% receive first choice in preschool preference ballotLatrobe City Council has revealed that 95 percent of preschool families were able to be offered their first preference in the recent preschool placement process. By Latrobe City Council - 27th September 2001 - Back to News Latrobe City Council has revealed that 95 percent of preschool families were able to be offered their first preference in the recent preschool placement process.
Latrobe City Mayor, Councillor Brendan Jenkins said that the figure was as high as 98 percent when either first, second or third preferences were taken into consideration.
"I congratulate our preschool staff on doing a great job, and believe the allocation has gone extremely well. The fact that there are a significant number of enrolments for Council’s preschool in 2002, makes Latrobe City one of the largest educational providers in the region," Cr Jenkins said.
"Latrobe City is one of the few municipalities that is prepared to provide Council run preschools, which we do because we have a commitment to ensuring every child has access to the benefits that preschool provides.
"Our system of allowing parents to nominate preferences for a particular preschool is considered visionary by most Councils, and considered the best system in the State. However, there will always be some preschools where the number of families wishing their children to attend are larger than the number of places available, so there is a need to allocate second and third preferences, and occasionally fourth, fifth or sixth," Cr Jenkins explained.
"In Traralgon we indicated at the time enrolments were being taken, that Blundell Hall would possibly not operate as a preschool in 2002, and parents nominating Blundell Hall as their first choice should give particular consideration to their next preferences. When the decision to place Blundell Hall in recess was made, we offered the 33 parents who had nominated Blundell Hall as their first preference, the opportunity to reconsider their next preferences. I am pleased to say that of those thirty-three, 27 received their first preference, two their second preference, and one family their third preference. Two families received their last preference and one child was withdrawn.
"At this stage there are likely to be twenty spare places in Traralgon to accommodate enrolments that may occur during the year, and there are similar vacancies in Morwell and Moe. While the State allows maximum classes of thirty preschoolers, Latrobe City has a policy of having no class exceed twenty-seven. At this stage our classes will average twenty-five, with much smaller classes operating in our rural preschools," Cr Jenkins added.
Source: www.gippsland.com Published by: latrobecity@gippslander.com

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