MEMBER for Western Victoria Jacinta Ermacora recently toured Portland South Primary School, after it was announced as the site of a new 57 place childcare and kindergarten.

During the visit just before the summer break, the Labor upper house MP was shown around the school and the Admella Hall, used but the school for PE classes, assemblies and its canteen, where the new building will be constructed.

Planning starts soon with an open date of 2026 for the State Government run centre which will provide long day care and three- and four year-old kindergarten programs.

“For families, this is going to make it easier to drop off the children to childcare in school in the same location,” Ms Ermacora said.

“It's also going to make it easier for children to undertake that transition from childcare and foundation through their education journey into primary school, and we know that some of those experiences can be stressful for children.

“This should help with that and hopefully it makes life a lot easier for families as well, particularly the cost of living but also that it's a positive experience for families.

Ms Ermacora said there was no doubt that the south west was facing a real shortage of childcare services.

“The impact of that is that new employees who might want to move to Portland, or move to the southwest region struggle to do so sometimes because of a lack of childcare,” she said.

“This initiative is about starting to address that problem, and this school has got space for expansion and is beautifully located.”

As for staffing, Ms Ermacora said subsidies for new early childhood degree students and free TAFE courses would help boost the available workforce in time for the centre to open.

Acting Principal Joanne van de Camp, who will be sitting on the project advisory committee, said the school community was largely excited about the announcement.

“They're also very excited about getting a replacement hall for this area as well, and the childcare centre, we actually have got families who are desperate for child care and their parents can't go to work, so they're very happy that the childcare will be at the schools,” she said.

“The only concern is that we would hope that we'd be getting something like for like with the toilet facilities, and being a bushfire rated school, we do need somewhere that can be our sheltering place.

“But we're very lucky to have beautiful grounds here at Portland South with lots of space.”

Ms Ermacora said that she would be returning to the school with more details on the planning and function of the centre as the year progressed.