Dear parents, guardians and community members
Welcome, 2021 is the beginning of an exciting new opportunity for your children to grow and thrive!
As many of you know, before this year, Niddrie was a campus of the much larger Western Autistic School, with its main campus in Laverton. We had around 100 young students while Laverton had over 300. For number of years, Niddrie parents pressed to have their own separate school, catering carefully for our students. Now it is a reality!!
I am privileged and proud to be the inaugural principal of our new school. I have a fundamental belief in the abilities and strengths of each child, and I have dedicated my entire career to teaching children with ASD. It is a constant joy to see the children learn whilst having fun at school, overcome challenges and begin the life-long journey of education. I would also like to pay due respect to Ms Mary Thompson, the principal of Western Autistic School who believed strongly in our new future and Ms Elizabeth Richardson, the former campus principal for all her hard work.
We are also very fortunate to have had the active support of our local member of parliament, Mr Ben Carrol who was instrumental in getting us a $7.2 million grant to begin a complete rebuild of the entire school. By early July, all our children and teachers will have moved to our state-of-art new classrooms.
At Niddrie, we have a team of enthusiastic, experienced and dedicated set of staff members who genuinely care for each child as an individual. All students need individual care in their early formative years but for children with ASD this is even more important to set the stage for future learning.
I love being in the classrooms and seeing our staff in action and you, as parents, are always welcome. Indeed, I am committed to an open-door policy and am keen to hear from every parent. Please just feel free to drop in or say hello when you pick up or drop off your children.
There will also be many exciting opportunities for parents to become involved in our school community as we form an exciting new learning culture together.
I look forward to working with you to achieve your child’s goals and your aspirations for their future.
Kind Regards
Paige Davey