By Aaron Cordy
40 YEARS young and they don’t look a day over six. Isabel Pearce Kindergarten (IPK) turned 40 last Friday, celebrating with families both old and new to reminisce about the past and look forward to the future.
What began as a single room in 1983 for a group of families and a committee who raised the funds to open a kindergarten in a lovely rural area, on Central Avenue in Shepparton East, has grown into one of the busiest Kinders in the district, opening a second room in 2012, to cater to over a hundred families a week.
While continuing to work towards a more sustainable centre, IPK has plans to build a bike track out the back of the centre with council backing, to teach the kinder aged children the importance of traffic and road safety.
Many IPK staff are long serving, exceeding 10 years’ service, and a dedicated few spent more than 20 years at IPK. “It’s a great service, once you start here you basically stay until you retire,’ laughed service leader Linda Laws, who has been at IPK for 18 years.
