New Norfolk High School Opens Its 1999 Year

New Norfolk High School opened its school year on a grey Wednesday morning, with rain coming down the valley from the west. The Year 7 intake arrived first, an hour ahead of the rest of the school, for an orientation programme run in the gymnasium. Most came from New Norfolk Primary. A smaller number came from the one- and two-teacher primary schools further up the valley, and for some of those children it was the first time they had been in a class larger than a dozen.

Each new student was paired with a Year 10 buddy under a scheme the school had introduced the previous year. The pairs spent the first period walking the grounds and the second in their home-group rooms, where the new students were issued timetables, locker keys and a diary they were expected to have signed by a parent or guardian every week.

The school had spent part of its summer budget on a computer room in the old library annexe, fitted with twenty new machines and the school's first student internet connection. It opened that morning to considerable interest and a short list of rules taped to the door. The science block was less fortunate. Its roof, patched over the holidays, began leaking again within an hour of the rain setting in, and the first Year 8 science class of the year was relocated to the canteen.

The week before term, the Year 7 coordinator had briefed home-group teachers on the small number of new students whose circumstances staff ought to know about: two children in foster care, one whose father was in hospital, and one recently bereaved. The information was passed on discreetly and was not recorded in the general student files.

The bereaved student was Oscar Lahey, twelve, enrolled from Hollow Tree by way of his grandparents' house in New Norfolk, where he and his younger sister Sarah had lived since the deaths of their parents the previous October. Patrick Lahey drove both children that morning, leaving Sarah at the primary school first. Oscar arrived on time, sat at the back of his home-group room, completed the forms he was given and answered questions about himself in as few words as possible. Asked by his Year 10 buddy where he had come from, he said Hollow Tree and nothing more. He spent lunchtime kicking a football against the wall of the gymnasium on his own, and was collected by his grandfather at the gate at ten past three.

The leak in the science block was repaired the following weekend. It was not the last time.