January 2023 was Josie’s first taste of Lightning Ridge: “Stepped out of my car to pick up my keys for my new place and straight away was just slapped in the face by this wave of heat. Then walking on that red dirt. I had never seen so much red dirt. 

"I had to walk to the back door of my apartment and looked over my back fence and there were just miles and miles of holes in the ground. I thought wow, this is just wild”.

She is one of thousands of new teachers who have started their first full time teaching jobs this year and one of many who started teaching jobs where we really need them - here on the western plains.

Let’s call her Ms Hughes because that’s how she is addressed most of the time now. 

Twenty two years old, born in Tamworth, finished her education degree at Charles Sturt University the equivalent of term 3 in school year 2022.

Two weeks later she was out of the lecture hall listening to a lecturer and having a whole bunch of primary school kids sitting on the floor listening her speak.

Josie Hughes. Image: Josie Hughes.

 “It was pretty nerve wracking, but I did have a lot of support” she says of her work as a casual teacher at a primary school.

“I wanted to be a teacher since I was like 9 or 10. We were doing some work with kindy students. My friend in the same grade said to me you should become a teacher and I just ran with that since” she told the Western Plains App.

This year Hughes has taken up a posting with Lighting Ridge Central where she teaches English. 

“I’ve never been out this far west” she told the Western Plains App “I'd been to Dubbo before. I'd never been to even Narrabri before. I didn't know anything about Lightning Ridge. But I just thought yep I'll give it a go”.

She was living in Wollongong at the time she got the job offer. Shortly thereafter she was in the car. took a six hour drive to Tamworth, then a five hour drive to Lightning Ridge, then as she says, the heat, the red dirt and the big holes in the ground.

Sydney woman Niamh Mulveney had originally planned to become a journalist but she was on a gap year in England just after high school where she did some work at a boarding school.

“I was doing mostly sport and outside activities with the students, and the penny just dropped. I decided to become a physical education teacher”.

Coonabarabran High School. Image: Coonabarabran High School.

Which she has - as of about two weeks ago - at Coonabarabran High School. It was what she said about her first ever class which I found interesting, yes, but a little foreboding - Ms Mulveny will be no push over.

The recent graduate and first time teacher’s first class was a Year 11 health class.

“I walked into the class and I just shared my high expectations of them. I told what I can expect from them and what they can expect from me. That I would show them respect. That I expect them to show me respect and we can have a good relationship. If that respect is crossed then we would have a different scenario”.

Niamh Mulveny. Image: Niamh Mulveny.

It was Ms Mulveny’s tone and that unspecified “different scenario” which made this reporter think this was not one teacher I would not want to mess around with. But I think she is a teacher I would like to have.

“ I am drawn to students with big dreams, big hopes and I want be there to help them achieve their big hopes and their big dreams," she said.

She’s pretty keen on her new town too; “such a lovely place” and the “staff at the school have been wonderful”.

Like Mulavey, Josie Hughes too is loving her job so far.

“I love learning. I love sharing learning. Its a little bit performative. I love getting up and building up some excitement in the classroom” she told the Western Plains App.