The gates at Forbes Public School will open on Tuesday morning, January 31, ready to welcome students for a new year.
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Friends will reconnect and learning will begin right on schedule - thanks to a remarkable effort by the school community and tradies after most of the Lake-front school was inundated in flooding late November 2022.
In a little more than two weeks, a temporary school has been raised on the oval, connected by cemented walkways which will soon be covered.
Teachers and staff have set up and resourced 19 classrooms - including staff room, professional learning centre, and front office - although some of the new classroom furniture is still arriving this week.
Principal Megan Staples says there are many people to thank, it's taken a real community effort to make this happen, dating back to the flood preparation that meant many resources were saved.
"We had lots of members of our community drop everything to come and help us prior to the flood," Ms Staples said.
That help was invaluable, especially as Ms Staples herself had a four-hour commute from her farm with waters cutting roads not only in the Forbes shire but every surrounding town.
Forbes Public School was only non-operational for a matter of days - as were all our local schools - during the flood peak.
For the last three weeks of the school year they made their home at Forbes High School, with Ms Staples thankful to both their hosts and Forbes Bus Company for accommodating some normality for them all at that time.
"It was really important that we kept family units together and we were able to open our doors for teaching and learning, to maintain that school routine amongst the external chaos of the floods," she said.
It also meant students had access to counselling services, as they will with the start of the new year, with special thanks to Rob Spence from the Department of Education's Disaster Recovery Team.
While some of the classrooms in the original school weren't affected by floodwaters, the decision was made to move all students to the oval site together.
While the building structures remain, they need new gyprock, carpets and painting and that work will take time.
"What that will enable us to do is close off that site for maintenance," Ms Staples said.
"There are buildings in our original school that we could have used but we want teaching and learning to continue."
Students should come to the Lachlan Street gate on Tuesday morning, where staff members will be ready to welcome them.
