Traffic Safety in & Around School

Following concerns through our School Association about student safety at peak times, you may see our senior staff in and around the turning circle and car park areas monitoring driver behaviour. Whilst it was raining heavily Thursday morning, parents and students were in good spirits and driving to the conditions. We know that our increased student numbers are putting a strain on peak times, particularly between 8:20-8:50 of a morning and around 2:50pm of an afternoon. To make the flow of students and traffic easier, we ask that all drivers consider the following;

• The turning circle is for ‘kiss and drop’ pick up/drop off only. Parents should not be leaving their vehicles to assist children in/out of the car – if this support is required, please find a car spot nearby to allow the safe and smooth movement of cars through the turning circle
• Abide by the 10 min limit on the car parks near kinder
• Display disabled passes on your dashboard if using these disability car spaces
• Follow the signage around the school ie student crossings, speed limits
• Drive at a ‘walking speed’ on internal roads to the Community Learning Centre and through all car parks
• Be courteous to other drivers
• And always be vigilant of where students may be around your vehicle

Tas Police will continue to monitor the school zones to ensure that road rules including the 40km in school zones is followed.

Intake Areas

Our School Association is putting together a response in relation to the review of intake areas or ‘zones’ for government schools. Two areas that were discussed as requiring further exploration from the draft plans were the proposal that Heybridge and Blythe Heads were no longer within Penguin’s intake area, and that the existing town boundary of the Lawn Cemetery and Allens Road is a logical eastern boundary, instead of including some sections of Lobster Creek Road.

If you would like to submit any feedback for the School Association, please don’t hesitate to speak with one of the executive members, or email penguin.district.school@education.tas.gov.au

Beach to Bush – What Penguin Means to Me

The Penguin 7 Day Makeover Committee have been awarded a Tas Community Fund Grant to continue improvements and beautification in and around Penguin’s CBD.

A great opportunity for us to engage with their efforts is through an arts project that they have to ‘dress up’ the bollards in front of the pharmacy and bank in the main street. They would like to step away from the heavily ‘Penguin’ themed bollards/bins etc with the design brief of ‘Beach to Bush – what Penguin means to me.’

Students are asked to use A3 paper/card for drawing a representation of what this idea means to them. It may be mountain biking with friends, hitting the skatepark or picnics on the beach with the grandparents. The A3 artworks will be scanned and transferred to vinyl wraps to be placed on the bollards.

Clear, recognisable pictures/phrases and bold colours would give the artwork a higher impact and be more recognisable.

Artwork needs to be submitted to the primary or secondary office by Friday 3 April and the committee will make a decision if the number of artworks exceeds the number of bollards and distribute any relevant prizes.

We think this is a great way of increasing our school and student presence in town and encourage students to take up this challenge.

Mat Grining

Principal