They are the faces of very brave young adults.
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Some have lost homes, pets, everything they had — others are just trying to support their close friends and still concentrate on finishing their HSC examinations.
Winmalee High School principal Katrina Middlebrook calls them “troopers”.
“The stress of losing their home and sometimes animals is distressing for them,” Ms Middlebrook said. “There’s no expectation if they’re not emotionally capable of sitting an exam that they would be expected to and there’s no way the Board [of Studies] expects that either,” she told media last week.
Last week’s worsening fire conditions caused closures to all Mountains schools on Wednesday with those HSC students sitting exams all over NSW.
School captain Daniel Squires evacuated with his family on Wednesday and sat his exams in Glenwood in Sydney’s north-west.
“Everyone was kind of looking at me strangely when I walked in,” Daniel, who sat the exam in his Winmalee High uniform, said. He lives in Bullaburra, so hasn’t been directly affected, but four of his mates who turned up to meet with The Gazette on Friday for these photos have. He feels to date he has done okay, despite finding it “incredibly difficult to concentrate” while so many of his friends are suffering.
Emily Colman lived in Buena Vista Rd at Winmalee, but this week will move into a rental house in Mt Riverview with her family.
Lucas Magennis’ family has found a place in Warragamba but he wants to stay in the Mountains. He is couch surfing and Sarah Thompson is doing the same. Sarah still has her notes and a laptop but cannot concentrate. The others have no study notes.
“Everyone is sort of freaking out,” Emily, who hopes to be a primary school teacher, told the Gazette last week “and we are still worried about everyone else”.
Winmalee High has applied to the NSW Board of Studies for misadventure forms for the entire HSC group of 120 — at least a dozen have lost their homes.
Year 12 co-ordinator Greg Dutton said “even the best kids have really struggled to maintain a great focus,” with some experiencing survivor guilt.
“They are obviously not okay,” Mr Dutton said. “Apart from those without homes, we’ve got one girl who lives near a row of 10 houses in Yellow Rock that have all gone, that’s what she sees when she looks out the window.”
He said the group were carrying each other through the tragedy.
“It’s definitely brought the year group closer, firmed up the friendships – they’ve had to hang in there for each other but its been very disrupting for their preparations. Most are still asking ‘why did it happen?’”