By the afternoon students and teachers had left the school in an emergency evacuation. As we left, we could see, hear and smell chaos - emergency service sirens, helicopters flying overhead and the ever increasing plume of fierce-looking smoke that seemed to be carving its way through the bush and our local community, obviously fire was devastating all in its path.

We huddled inside the local shopping centre. In a matter of less than an hour a fire blown by strong westerly winds, had destroyed more than 200 homes and caused damage to as many properties again. The fire continued to burn and threaten our community for many days.

In the days and months following, our entire community had to come to terms with what had happened.

The outpouring of love, generosity, support and goodness was a huge step towards healing.

As a school community we re-established routines as quickly as possible. We wanted the children to be at school with their mates having a normal school day, be in the classroom with their teachers and be able to talk in a safe and supportive environment about what their own experiences on the day had been like.