With the new school year underway, the Member for Wendouree Juliana Addison dropped in to Caledonian Primary School today to present new preps with a special gift.

Each year, the Andrews Government provides every prep student starting at Victorian government schools with a bag of fun and engaging resources to celebrate the start of their educational journey.

The mix of booklets, flyers, stickers and stationery items are specially designed for prep students and their families to help them thrive in school from the start of Term 1.

This year, almost 60,000 Prep bags are being distributed to Victorian government primary schools.

The bag also provides useful information for parents on initiatives including health and wellbeing, safety, excellence in literacy and numeracy, and community engagement.

The 2020 Prep Bag also contains five quality children’s books selected by literary experts to support literacy outcomes. The five books included this year are:

• Silver Buttons, written and illustrated by Bob Graham
• The Dress-Up Box, written by Patrick Guest and illustrated by Nathaniel Eckstrom
• Where is Galah? written and illustrated by Sally Morgan
• Hello from Nowhere, written by Raewyn Caisley and illustrated by Karen Blair
• Edward the Emu, written by Sheena Knowles and illustrated by Rod Clement.

Ms Addison said the Prep Bags are a positive way of introducing prep students to a new world of education.

“Every Prep student in every government school in Ballarat will start their education with a new library bag and bundle of books to spark the joy of reading, thanks to this great initiative from the Andrews Government,” Ms Addison said.

“The first day of Prep is a huge step for students and parents, we want to make sure that the education students receive at school continues at home and beyond,” she said.