MORE than a year after it was attacked by arsonists, Werribee students celebrated the reopening of one of their school’s buildings.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard was in Werribee last week to officially open a multipurpose hall and refurbished sporting grounds at Manorvale Primary School.
The school’s gym was destroyed by fire in November 2010 just after it was built and before it could be officially opened.
Ms Gillard commended the staff and students for their resilience.
“Here in your school you had to do a really brave thing, you had to go through all that construction and disruption twice,” Ms Gillard said.
“You had the heartbreak of having something that was nearly finished, nearly complete and it was burnt down, and you had to come back from it.”
School Principal Helen Watson said she had been inspired to see how the school’s staff and students had endured the loss of their facilities.
“We learned to be patient, in fact I think we are gold medallists in patience,” Ms Watson said.
“We have discovered that there is way more good people in the world than bad people.”
Ms Gillard said the new facilities were made possible by $3.05 million from the Australian Government, under the historic Building the Education Revolution (BER) program.
“Building the Education Revolution is the single biggest investment in Australian schools in our history, and has delivered modern facilities to more than 9500 schools around the country. It really is a $16.2 billion investment in the nation’s future,” she said.
