It is onwards and upwards for Navarre Primary School next year after a challenging 2018 school year.
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Low student numbers had the school in a dire situation, but things are now looking up for years to come.
At the beginning of 2018, the school started the year with the “smallest enrolment (it) ever had”, with just five children in attendance.
“In May we had two families relocate and leave the school. They each had two children with us,” Navarre Primary School principal Sue Slater said.
“When they both left us that meant we only had one student left at the school.
“The department of education gave us until the end of term three to build our enrolments.”
The school was unable to attract any more students for the school year, with the one remaining student transferring to another school. The lack of numbers spurred them into action.
“We were given third term to build our numbers and we worked very hard at that,” Mrs Slater said.
“We developed a Facebook page, made lots of calls, started lots of advertising and set up a website.”
Staff at Navarre continued to strive to bring children to the school for education despite no primary school aged children attending the school in the second half of the year.
With the support of a future parent, they started a ‘Shake, Rattle and Read’ program for children between birth and four years old.
“Children would come to learn about school, sing songs, read stories, do art and craft and have some fun,” Mrs Slater said.
“The enrolment started at five, but with a lot of hard work we were able to get that number out to 21 enrolled in the program.”
With the success of Shake, Rattle and Read, as well as a bit of luck with some families moving to town, Navarre now has six students enrolled for next year and will look to continue building for the future.
“We are starting from a foundation and building. We estimate in four years we will have 16 children enrolled if everything goes to plan,” Mrs Slater said.
“We are looking to keep building. We have four families but would always love to have more because we do have some great things to offer here.”
Mrs Slater said having the school running and thriving is crucial to keeping a small town like Navarre thriving.
“If there is no school here eventually the whole town would have died,” she said.
“For the future of the town it is vitally important the school is here.
“We are excited about our future and can’t wait to be fully operational in 2019.”