The educational energy is high at Western Cape College as teachers prepare to welcome students into a new school year. Photo: Supplied.
Whether a preppy entering school for the first time, a year 12 starting their final year of school, or anything in between, Cape York and Torres Strait schools will welcome their 2025 cohort of students for a new year this week.
After a well-deserved holiday, students across the Cape put on their uniforms and backpacks today (28 January) for another year of learning.
At Weipa’s Western Cape College (WCC), students will have met many new teachers after the school welcomed 40 new staff members to the team last week.
“That’s about a third of our staff, so a whole lot of work has been done to support them to be inducted and understand how we do business here, and it’s definitely brought some new energy,” principal Dan Tonan told Cape York Weekly after an onboarding day for the new team members last week.
“We’ve spent a lot of time finding the right people, and that’s not just people who are qualified, but also have the skills and interest in teaching and connecting in a remote community, and we’re lucky that we had a strong pool of people to choose from.
“This year’s priorities are about building connections within our school community, working hard for our kids and having some fun, so it should be a great year.”
At Cooktown State School, senior secondary deputy principal Danielle Furmage said she loved the fresh start and energy that came with a new school year.
“The beginning of a new year is always really exciting; it’s when everybody is relaxed and energised and ready for a fresh start,” she said.
“There’s always a little bit of anxiety and fear of the unknown, too, but it’s just like any beginning.
“You’ve got the opportunity to write the end because you’re at chapter one, so anything can happen, and that really excites me, because it means it doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past, we can learn from our mistakes and we’ve got so much to hope for and look forward to.”
Send us your day one snaps
With everyone now back at school for another year of learning, we want to showcase the day one – or week one – smiles in the 4 February edition of the Cape York Weekly.
While we’d love to see students of all ages from across Cape York and the Torres Strait, nothing gets us grinning quite as much as seeing our prep and year 1 kids in their uniforms and preparing to embark on their education adventure.
If we receive enough photos from across the region, we’ll run them as a feature in next week’s edition – perfect for sending a copy to family and friends scattered across the country.
Who knows, we might even be able to convince a certain editor to show off his day one photo from about a million years ago.
Seeing your students in print is simple – just send your photos, the full names of everyone appearing in them, and the year level of the students to [email protected], text them to 0419 891 666 or flick them in our direction via our Facebook page.
