The thing about after-school activities is not to worry about them, just sign the cheques! Only kidding ... but in a way it is true.

This is the best chance our children have in life to extend themselves in such things as sport, music, speech and drama, debating or to stay back for chess club, finish a science experiment or expand their interest in computers.

Schools are the cornerstone of our society.

We cannot put a cost on education ... it’s an investment in their future, our future, Australia’s future.

From my experience it’s a matter of letting children try things ... be exposed to as many experiences as possible and let them decide what they want to do.

Try a variety of sports and cultural activities because they are there to be enjoyed.

Children have a certain amount of competitive nature built in ... and they love to perform, right from pre-school.

So it is our responsibility to nurture and encourage that. It helps them with self-esteem, personal presentation etc.

The best thing in the world is to be laying in bed of a Saturday morning and to hear them practising piano ... without having to be told.

To see them kicking a ball around the yard, opening their minds to the watery world of the fish pond, observing ants or simply reading a book.

As parents we spend a considerable amount of time getting or children off to school, to the after-school activities and just waiting for them.

Little wonder that more and more families are realising how important it is to live close to school.

It is a matter of saving time and energy.

Especially when there are two or three children in different grades and who need to go to different after-school activities.

The Sunshine Coast is becoming increasingly better supplied with quality educational facilities.

So much so that it is a drawcard for people from other parts of Australia as well as overseas.

The university is the hub and it filters down from there – TAFE centres, high schools, primary, pre-school and kindergarten to day-care centres.

We are seeing an impact on property prices in precincts that provide good educational facilities.

Look at Buderim and the way colleges such as Matthew Flinders, Immanuel and Sunshine Coast Grammar have influenced where people want to live.

The same goes at Mountain Creek, at Woombye with Christian Outreach College and Nambour Christian College, and at Peregian Springs where St Andrews is being established.

The Caloundra City School at Pelican Waters is the latest to recognise the value of good educational facilities to growing communities.

We can easily forget the importance of these institutions. The value they are to our community.

Yet attend a match of school rugby of a winter’s night and you will see what I mean.

Crowds of about 3000 turning up on a mid-week winter’s night to see the finals.

Otherwise there are plenty of opportunities to be enthralled by musical performances at any of the halls or theatres dotted throughout the region.
Schools today virtually never sleep.

I have been at the swimming pool at 6am for the learn-to-swim classes and in the carpark at 10pm, waiting for the bus to return from an excursion.

In between we attend athletics carnivals, fetes, open days, discos, join in science experiments, cover books for the library and take turn at tuckshop roster.

To see the music students and choir performing at the end of year makes it all worthwhile. I can remember at one concert I told my daughter just that.

Coincidentally, only two days later it was Father’s Day and she already had the card picked out.

It read: “Dads are great because they pay for things they don’t always get to see.’’

I was lucky enough to see that concert.

And it made me realise that seeing our children perform, seeing them learn, seeing them participate is repayment enough for all of those early mornings and late nights.