Lara grew up on a property at Goolgowi, and spent her primary school years at the small town’s public school where she enjoyed the tightly-knit, small-community family atmosphere, even having the guidance of her mother, Julie as one of the teachers on staff.

Julie was a big influence on her fellow staff members, including then fellow Goolgowi teacher Denise Higgins. Denise taught her kids and Lara during their time at Goolgowi providing some of their earliest memories and support at school.

Now almost 20 years later, Lara feels she’s in a perfect position to continue learning, spending her first year as a teacher alongside Mrs Higgins at Griffith East.

After grappling with the new relationship with her former teacher, Lara says she relishes drawing from her experience growing up at Goolgowi Public under Denise, particularly her teaching tips and techniques.

“I actually only just stopped calling her Mrs Higgins a couple of years ago,” Lara said. “One thing that’s really clear in my mind, is we always thought Mrs Higgins was the best dressed of the teachers. Always stylish. And in the classroom, it was always exciting … we had multiple class budgerigars.”

“The budgee went home every weekend with a different child, and one weekend it was Hannah’s (Denise’s daughter) turn to bring Bluey home,” Denise said. “The budgee went missing while Hannah was out, and the best we could do at short notice was get a green one to replace him. Hannah came back and said, look at Bluey. He’s changed colour. I said, yeah, it happens when they spend too long in the sun.”

“We were little,” Lara said. “And of course, we trusted our teachers. So we told our parents about our budgee that changed colour.”

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While it’s Denise’s fun family atmosphere and genuine Goolgowi support she wants to emulate, Lara knows it’s not all smooth sailing in the classroom.

“When I first arrived at East, I said to Denise I didn’t really know what to do,” Lara said. “And she just said to read to them. Read as many books as you can. Six books a day sometimes.”

“Julie thanked me for offering Lara advice recently, but I had to thank her,” Denise said. “It’s everything she taught me when I first started at Goolgowi as a teacher.”