The Mwangi family – parents Zach and Christine and children Liam and Kaya – have just moved from Sydney to Strathnairn. Photos: Ian Bushnell.
It was a big day for the Mwangi family at the new Strathnairn School in Canberra’s north-west.
They were among dozens of families dropping off their children for their first day at school, made especially exciting because it is the first school to open in Ginninderry and the 93rd public school in the ACT.
Recent arrivals from Sydney, lawyer Zach and nurse Christine, enrolled their son Liam in Year 1 and their daughter Kaya in Preschool, and were relieved that the school opened on time after a 12-month delay. However, they’re also excited that the site is still a work in progress.
“We were a little bit worried that the school would not be ready but it they did an amazing job of getting everything ready on time, and they communicated to us on every step. Even when we were transitioning, they let us know that we can always come in and talk to them just to get a bit of an idea of what to expect,” Christine said.
She welcomed the diverse Strathnairn community and the opportunity to contribute as both a professional and a new mum.
“The most amazing thing is that we’ve already seen some of our neighbours, and their kids are in the same class,” Christine said.
“So we already feel at home here.”
Education Minister Yvette Berry with Deputy Principal Kylie Robson, left, and Principal Nicole Nicholson.
Strathnairn kicked off the 2026 school year with an enrolment of 105 across two classes each for Preschool to Year 2, but that will eventually expand to four streams as the school grows.
The Preschool is full, and the other classes have about 16 students each, with capacity to reach the maximum of 21.
Strathnairn School will have capacity for up to 780 students in Preschool to Year 6, and a further 130 places in the Early Learning Centre.
For Principal Nicole Nicholson, it isn’t her first time shepherding a new school; she is a former deputy principal at Charles Weston School in Coombs.
She admits that, as principal, it is a daunting task, but being on the ground for the past 12 months has been hugely beneficial for getting to know her community.
“We really want families to feel that sense of connection, and that they have a place where they belong,” she said.
“We’re really excited to go on this journey with our families and welcome people as they move in because it’s a growing area, and we know that the school’s going to grow and evolve very quickly over the next couple of years.”
It was the community’s choice to name the school after its suburb, and Ms Nicholson stressed its role in co-designing the school’s values, vision and philosophy.
She said the school would celebrate the community’s rich cultural diversity.
“We really want to make this place somewhere where everybody feels that they belong, that it’s truly inclusive,” she said.
Staff and students will hit the ground running, including implementing the Strong Foundations recommendations from the expert panel on literacy and numeracy.
“We have all of our students engaging in an orientation week this week, where they’ll all get to know each other because we’ve got such a beautiful small group of students, and then it’s straight into learning with our literacy, our inquiry, our maths, our social emotional learning, the whole gamut of the curriculum,” she said.
Ms Nicholson even sees a plus in the fact that the school is still very much a development site, with another stage to open mid-year.
“There’s so much opportunity around this area for the children to learn about how a community develops and grows,” she said.
Stage 2 will include additional learning spaces, student and staff amenities, a hall/gymnasium, playgrounds, a kick-about space, a sports field, a covered hard court, rainwater tanks, a security fence, and the remaining carparks.
The design includes sustainable materials and a solar power generation system, and it has a 5-Star Green Star rating.
The school will also partner with The Y, which will operate its early learning centre, before- and after-school care and, eventually, the canteen.
Parents ACT has identified school staffing as the major issue raised by parents and is urging them to make submissions to the school resourcing inquiry.
Education minister Yvette Berry said Strathnairn only had one teacher vacancy.
She said government recruitment was continual throughout the year, but its focus needed to move to retaining the teachers it already had.
The good news was that more people than ever were applying to train to be teachers.
“What we’ve seen across the country is a significant increase in the number of people who are studying and becoming teachers because of the work that the Albanese Government has done and each state and territory government has done by investing in encouraging people to choose teaching as a career and supporting them to be in their career,” she said.
