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Speaker 1: Well, first day of school yesterday for the large number

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Speaker 1: of Northern Territory school students and teachers and all of

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Speaker 1: the staff at the schools. Hopefully it went smoothly. At

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Speaker 1: your place, it went pretty smoothly yesterday for us. This

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Speaker 1: morning little bit a little bit rockier. But joining me

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Speaker 1: on the line right now is the Northern Territory Branch

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Speaker 1: president of the Australian Education Union, Michelle Is. Good morning

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Speaker 1: to you, Michelle.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Kenny, Michelle.

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Speaker 1: How did it go yesterday for all of the Northern

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Speaker 1: Territories teachers?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think everyone's excited to be back for twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty three and yeah, just to get on with the year.

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Speaker 3: Twenty of new kids starting starting school this year and

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Speaker 3: moving on up.

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Speaker 2: Teachers are, Yeah, they're ready to get back into twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty three after a very tumultuous twenty twenty two. We're

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Speaker 2: just really hoping that things calm down the year and

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Speaker 2: that we can yeah, much more positive year.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope, so, I hope so for you know,

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Speaker 1: for the teacher's sake and also for all the school

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Speaker 1: students and the support staff. It's been a rough couple

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Speaker 1: of years. Michelle. How are we looking when it comes

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Speaker 1: to those staffing levels. From the union's perspective, yeah.

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Speaker 2: So we've got like there's been fairly positive recruitment happened

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Speaker 2: across the territory for this year following the events of

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Speaker 2: last year. But our concern is that at our numbers

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Speaker 2: overall of teachers are still down based on the fact

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Speaker 2: that positions are down because overall our school budgets are

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Speaker 2: still struggling under that funding model we were discussing at

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Speaker 2: the end of last year. So the government are in

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Speaker 2: the process of doing work around that. It's just that

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Speaker 2: in the meantime we're looking at less teachers across the territory.

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Speaker 2: Not necessarily because people haven't been recruited, although I do

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Speaker 2: believe that there are positions still could be filled, but

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Speaker 2: also because yeah, school budgets are struggling. So I'm talking

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Speaker 2: about things like you know, drama programs having to be

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Speaker 2: cut and that kind of thing in order to make

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Speaker 2: room for yeah, those lower budgets.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that makes things really tough. I mean, they're

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Speaker 1: the types of things that kids love. You want to

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Speaker 1: make sure that you're engaging kids and you know, those

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Speaker 1: different kinds of programs, the arts programs, sports, programs all

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. They are the areas we're quite

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Speaker 1: often you know, they're what brings the kids lots and

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Speaker 1: lots of joy in addition to learning.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely they do, and it's clearly evident in the research

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Speaker 2: and the literature that it's things like art programs that

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Speaker 2: really engage and kids benefit from who you struggle to

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Speaker 2: engage in school. So at the end of the day,

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Speaker 2: this is about well, it's about education. But when we

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Speaker 2: talk about re engagement and you know, driving up attendance

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Speaker 2: because at the moment our budgets are linked to that,

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Speaker 2: it's those kinds of programs that will really resonate with

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Speaker 2: the kids where maybe their strength isn't literacy and numeracy,

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Speaker 2: there is the ability to really provide a positive educational

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Speaker 2: experience the kids who may not be engaging. And the

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Speaker 2: other issue, of course, is that where teacher numbers are

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Speaker 2: dropping because budgets are dropping, that means that that school

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Speaker 2: has less teachers over all to cover things like relief

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Speaker 2: classes and yeah, if there's a teacher away, there's a

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Speaker 2: lack of flexibility in classrooms. It was definitely the case

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Speaker 2: across twenty twenty two. It remains the case to be

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Speaker 2: seen how it grows over twenty twenty three. But that

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Speaker 2: becomes an issue when you're talking about teacher well being,

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Speaker 2: when you're talking about safety in schools. We really need

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Speaker 2: the ability to have as much sexibility as possible, but

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Speaker 2: also being able to keep in routines and that kind

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Speaker 2: of thing. So it comes down to the number of

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Speaker 2: teachers in front of kids and how many kids are

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Speaker 2: having their their same teacher in front of them every day.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well you're spot on, Michelle. What about them? You

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Speaker 1: know when you look at support stuff. So I don't

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Speaker 1: know whether there's school still called teacher's aides or teachers

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Speaker 1: assistants maybe at some schools, but you know, for some classrooms,

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Speaker 1: if you have got children who have additional support needs

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Speaker 1: or additional learning needs in those classrooms, have we got

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Speaker 1: a situation where we've got many of those support staff

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Speaker 1: at the moment?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, another brilliant question. I don't have an answer off

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Speaker 2: the top of my head to that one day, do

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Speaker 2: have it? There's different roles depending on different schools. That

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Speaker 2: one comes back to the way we fund our extra

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Speaker 2: or additional needs within schools, and that is I believe

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Speaker 2: currently under review. But yeah, as far as how many

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Speaker 2: people are in those positions. I'm not sure, however, I

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Speaker 2: can tell you it wouldn't it's not enough. The being

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Speaker 2: able to fund on student need is one of our

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Speaker 2: huge priorities for this year in the AAU to be

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Speaker 2: working with the government really on getting as many teachers,

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Speaker 2: as many teaching assistants, allied health professionals. I mean, our

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Speaker 2: schools should have occupational therapists, speech pathologists. There's increasing need

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Speaker 2: to have these kind of things in schools and so

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Speaker 2: that's part of this funding work that we're talking about

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Speaker 2: doing with the with the Department of Education, with the

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Speaker 2: territory government. Absolutely it's time to change. They came out

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Speaker 2: at the end of last year and said that they're

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Speaker 2: ready to reform the way they fund schools. So yeah,

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Speaker 2: now it's about it's about talking about how do we

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Speaker 2: do that, how do we boost those numbers of stuff,

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Speaker 2: And that's teachers, that's teachers assistants, and that's our allied

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Speaker 2: health et cetera.

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Speaker 1: There's yes, and I'm guessing that you know that part

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Speaker 1: of that conversation as well as like your welfare support

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Speaker 1: or you know, support for kids that are maybe struggling

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Speaker 1: a bit through school for various reasons, and making sure

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Speaker 1: that they've got some support mechanisms to keep them in

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Speaker 1: school too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's about re engagement. So in that kind

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Speaker 2: of work, we're going to need to see social workers

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Speaker 2: and that kind of thing out there working with family.

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Speaker 2: So huge news at the moment around what's going on

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Speaker 2: in Alice Springs. We need people who are actually out

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Speaker 2: there working with the kids, getting them back into the

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Speaker 2: schools where they need to be. That's not just something

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Speaker 2: that the teachers can do or that school principals can do.

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Speaker 2: The government like we do have attendance programs and that

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Speaker 2: kind of thing, but there needs to be systematic work,

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Speaker 2: quality work from the government where there's social workers, there's

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Speaker 2: youth workers, etc. Who are actually out there engaging with

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Speaker 2: the community, re engaging these kids in school.

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Speaker 1: An is that happening at the moment in Ellice Springs

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Speaker 1: from what you know?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, as I said, I believe there's some external

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Speaker 2: programs that the department helps to fund, and then there's

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Speaker 2: school engagement teams that are through the Department of Education.

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Speaker 2: But I would posture guests that it is it's an

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Speaker 2: area where we can definitely invest more in and again,

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Speaker 2: I know that there are brilliant people working in the

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Speaker 2: schools across Alice Springs and across the territory, our principles,

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Speaker 2: our teachers. I think I've said this to you last year, Katie.

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Speaker 2: They're the people who know what works with kids and

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Speaker 2: who have the ideas of how to engage kids. They

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Speaker 2: really just need the Department and the government to step

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Speaker 2: up and back them with the funding and then they'll

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Speaker 2: be able to tell you, I need a social worker

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Speaker 2: who's employed who can go out and get those kids,

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Speaker 2: or this is how we need to structure our programs

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Speaker 2: so that we can draw kids in. And yeah, they're

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Speaker 2: the people we need to be listening to. They're the

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Speaker 2: ones who are on the ground engaging with the kids

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Speaker 2: day in, day out, or who know what's not working.

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Speaker 1: Similarly, well, Michelle Is it is always good to catch

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Speaker 1: up with you. It sounds like it's going to be

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Speaker 1: a really interesting year in terms of those reviews happening

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Speaker 1: as well. How soon are we kind of expecting the

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Speaker 1: outcomes to any of those, do you know?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, the funding review, we've been given a timeline of

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Speaker 4: two to five years, so the AU is actually asking

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Speaker 4: the government to bring that forward.

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Speaker 2: We think that two years is too long when it

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Speaker 2: comes to a school system that is really growning under

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Speaker 2: the weight of this funding model at the moment, and

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Speaker 2: so absolutely five years is far too long. We're calling

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Speaker 2: on the government to have results on that that are

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Speaker 2: affordable by the beginning of next year, and we're willing

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Speaker 2: to do the work for them on that, and then

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Speaker 2: we are expecting to see I believe this disability funding

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Speaker 2: review come in across the year. Sometimes I'm not sure

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Speaker 2: what the deadline is on that, but we should see

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Speaker 2: across the year that and the high school review we

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Speaker 2: spoke about at the end of last year as well,

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Speaker 2: we'll be seeing results on that within the next year

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Speaker 2: as well, I think.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, I'll be interested to see what feares from

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Speaker 1: all of those, but Michelle, no doubt we'll talk again

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Speaker 1: very soon. All the best for the school year to

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Speaker 1: you and all of our wonderful teachers. Thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for your time this morning.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, HP, thank you