Minister praises “resilient” Seroja-affected students, but says Binnu school reopening is “weeks” away

Binnu Primary School is likely to remain closed for several more weeks until its cyclone-damaged Lone Pine tree can be stabilised.

Education Minister Sue Ellery visited the students at their temporary “classroom” at Binnu Town Hall on Friday to see how staff and families were feeling after cyclone Seroja. Ms Ellery said children and teachers had adapted well to their new learning centre.

“The town hall is working really well, the students are loving it, and they all wrote stories which they read out to me about how they really loved coming back to school to see their friends,” she said.

Ms Ellery said while the school buildings were structurally sound, the unstable tree remained a safety risk.

“The school buildings are able to be used again but there is the situation with the tree, so we are making sure that the tree can be kept alive and safe and that is probably going to take another couple of weeks before students are in the school site,” she said.

Ms Ellery also visited Northampton District High School and Kalbarri District High School last week, saying all school communities had shown great strength in the wake of the natural disaster.

“There was fantastic resilience at all of the three schools in the three communities that I spoke to,” she said.

“School is often the hub and centre of any community so it was potentially a very big problem if education wasn’t going to be able to restart.

“People were obviously worried about what the future holds... In some areas the rebuild is going to be taking a long time so there is some anxiety about that. But that is perfectly normal and you would expect that.”

Mental health remained a top priority for the communities, said Ms Ellery, and the Department of Education had deployed additional pastoral care services in cyclone-affected towns.

“People are talking about, which I think is a good thing, wanting to track the mental health of the kids and the families and the school staff affected by the cyclone,” she said.

While evidence of storm damage was present in Kalbarri, Ms Ellery said clean-up efforts had been “amazing”.

“Everything looks very neat and tidied up but you can still clearly see where the damage is and you will be able to see that for a while to come,” she said.