Kentucky Public School

Location: New England

Kentucky PS is a rural small school located between Armidale and Tamworth in the New England Region of NSW. The school’s 44 students come from the local village and surrounding district. Kentucky PS provides high levels of pastoral care with an emphasis on providing high quality learning experiences in a sustainable setting.

How has your school used its Gonski funding?

Gonski funding has been used to provide additional teaching time and support to more effectively develop and implement a wide range of quality programs at the school. This includes the co-ordination and management of the Small Schools Marimba Ensemble. This group is based at Kentucky PS and is made up of students from small school across the state. It enables students from these schools to participate in quality performance experiences at venues including the Sydney Opera House on instruments made by themselves, developing high levels of self esteem, community pride and learning focus.

How has Gonski made a positive difference for students?

Through providing additional teacher time and support, Gonksi funding has enabled the school to more effectively manage a wide range of programs making a real difference to student learning outcomes and wellbeing. The school conducts weekly bike safety sessions, manages a comprehensive kitchen - garden program, runs extensive sustainability initiatives, provides quality performing arts experiences and a range of alternative winter and summer sport opportunities. The effective management and implementation of this range of learning experiences have only been possible through Gonski funding.

What could your school do with Gonski funding in the future?

Continued Gonksi funding would see the above programs continue and student learning outcomes maximised. Funding would continue to applied to increasing teacher time and support across the school also offsetting the disadvantages associated with an inequitable staffing formula.

<<< BACK


More Gonski Success Stories

Upper Coomera SC is an urban Prep to Year 12 school with a highly diverse student population.
Cowandilla Primary school, in Adelaide’s inner western suburbs, has an enrolment of 440 students from a wide range of socioeconomic, cultural and language backgrounds, and many students change schools regularly.
Craigmore High School, in outer northern Adelaide, has around 950 students, including 62 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and 84 students from non-English-speaking backgrounds, together with 150 students with identified disabilities.
It comprising two Years 7-10 campuses (Leichhardt and Balmain) and one Year 11-12 campus (Blackwattle Bay). The Leichhardt Campus, which has 900 students, is a socioeconomically and culturally diverse middle school. Around 3 % of students are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.
Glenelg Primary School, located in beachside Adelaide, has 760 students from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds.
Box Hill HS, an established multicultural co-educational secondary school in suburban Melbourne, has an enrolment of about 1,230 students. 825 students are English-speaking, and 450 speak, in total, more than 53 languages other than English.
It is a modern college with a junior campus (Years 7 – 9), a senior campus (years 10 – 12) and a residential campus. About half of the school’s 850 students are from low SES backgrounds, with three quarters in the lowest two SES quartiles.
Benalla Flexible Learning Centre was established in February 2015 as a campus of Wodonga Senior Secondary College to provide an alternative educational program for young people aged between 14 and 19 years who have had difficulties with mainstream education.
Most of Mahogany Rise’s almost 150 students are from low-income backgrounds. Around one-fifth are from non-English speaking backgrounds and there are a number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
Merrylands High School, a comprehensive high school in western Sydney, has an enrolment of about 720 students from a diverse range of socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds.
Carina State School is an inner-city Brisbane multicultural school with an enrolment of approximately 325 students. Just under half of the students are from low-income backgrounds.
Cairns West State School is a primary school that serves three suburbs with the highest density of public housing in Queensland. Its enrolment of 730 culturally-diverse and complex-needs students are almost all from low-income backgrounds, and less than 9% have English as their first language.