Parents gave the gift of learning

I rolled up to my first day at boarding school with two pigtails (neither my mother, nor I, could braid), the compliant, maroon headband, and matching ribbons at the start of each plait.

We had gone all-out at the school uniform shop — I had never seen anything like it, after spending my primary school years at Kununurra District High School in the East Kimberley.

There, all female students required in the 1990s and early 2000s was a dark blue shirt or the school’s light blue, chequered dress, to go along with whatever pants, skirt or shoes you liked.

Before my parents departed that first morning, they took a photo of the five Kununurra girls about to start their high school education at St Mary’s Anglican Girls School in February, 2003.

I am sure we looked almost comical, awkwardly decked out in our school dresses, jumpers, blazers, hats, socks and perfectly polished brown school shoes.

We were a quintet of 12 and 13-year-old kids far more accustomed to bare feet, boardies and oversized T-shirts — and we had been primed and polished to the best of our parents’ ability.

At 29, I now struggle to remember how I felt that first day, but imagine it was a little bit overwhelmed, and maybe a little bit excited ... a fish out of water.

My parents, Ian and Colleen, pictured, felt incredibly proud.

I remember how excited all of our parents were, even with an upcoming flight and knowledge their kids would be 3200km away for eight to 12 weeks at a time.

The distance, and time spent far away, must have broken each of their hearts a few times, I’m sure.

Looking at that photograph now, I see a 12-year-old girl about to embark on one of the first real challenges of her life — one that would not be truly appreciated for many years to come.

My dress was about three sizes too big — “you’ll grow into it”, my mother had explained — and the brown shoes were like brick clogs on my (usually bare and most likely grubby) feet.

Those initial school dresses never really fit me, and even four years later, my Year 8 dress was still at least a size too large.

Buying a few sizes up was an economical way of making sure I never needed to buy a new dress.

Unfortunately, in the depths of Perth winters, I made up for my parents’ frugal ambitions by clumsily and accidentally ripping multiple holes in stockings while trying to put them on.

In a bid to save time, I once tried sleeping in them to avoid the 20-minute battle which was a contributing factor to regularly being late for my first class.

(It was uncomfortable, probably unhygienic, and not a very effective way to save time).

That memorable first day at boarding school came a few years after my parents brought home a handful of leaflets from various boarding schools in Perth, which was a 3222km drive south-west of our home in Kununurra.

We lived on a 2ha property about 17km east of the town, just a hop, skip and a jump from the WA-Northern Territory border on the banks of the Ord.

As a primary school student, I caught a school bus for 30 minutes each way, each day.

Time before and after school was spent reading, exploring the bushland behind our home and knocking about with the other kids that lived in our 24-property community coined Crossing Falls.

Perched on my parents’ bed, my impressions from the leaflets were that each of the schools looked much the same, with glossy photographs of smiling students and manicured lawns.

My parents chose St Mary’s, for two key reasons — it had expanses of lawn and open space, and there were four other girls from Kununurra set to go to the same school in my year group.

My late December birthday meant I was the youngest in our year, but also one of the tallest.

Intellectually mature, a little emotionally immature — boarding school was definitely a shock to the system.

Homework? Lockers? Ties?!

It was a whole new world, but one I was very grateful also featured elastic ties, a lot of country kids, and (among the ones that seemed scary), many empathetic “housies”.

Fortunately, many other Kununurra girls had paved the way at St Mary’s before me.

At no time in my five years at the school did I feel I had no one around me that understood where I came from, or what I was going through as a boarding student.

Being away for so many weeks at a time was hard: there were no weekend trips home, and my parents missed out on a lot of school concerts, performances, good days, bad days, and a handful of academic successes.

At each of those times, our group of 50-plus boarders from the class of 2007 grew closer, and I am glad to report that many of us still have very strong friendships after all these years.

It was not until I started a full-time job that I realised how much my parents put their lives on hold and truly sacrificed to send their only child the vertical length of Australia away.

Not only did they miss much of my formative years, they also missed out on a whole lot of income I am sure they would have loved to have poured into their mortgage, an overseas holiday, or just living an easier life.

As a teenager, I naively assumed the $700-or-so pay cheques I made on my two week school holiday breaks were a drop in the ocean compared to the money “real adults” must make.

These days, I realise I was the reason why mum drove the same, 1992 Toyota Landcruiser for more than 20 years — only upgrading recently, a whole 12 years after I graduated in 2007.

We were not rich; we did not fit many of the stereotypes of the people that send their kids away.

I realise now that many of the other girls I went to school with did not either, and many of the WA farming families that send their children away also are not.

The cost of sending a child to a private boarding school in Perth has nearly doubled since my time.

For a child born in 2018, the estimated cost of a six-year, private, secondary education and boarding at a big private school in 2040 will be about $84,000 a year, compared to $55,000 today — an astronomical amount of money.

I can’t give a whole lot of advice to those parents whose children finished their first few days at boarding school last week.

But I do know that whether they loved it, or hated it, those feelings will ebb and flow during the next few days, months and years.

And one day, they might look back and feel a lot of thanks.

Cally Dupe is the news editor at Countryman, and a former boarder at St Mary’s Anglican Girls School