WITH January each year comes droves of country kids packing their bags and heading off to boarding school.
Mitchell Baker, 11, will be one of many off to board for the first time – leaving mum and dad Mark and Megan Baker, and his little brother Macklin, 9, behind at Bareena Valley, Orion.
Mrs Baker said the boys were always going to be going away to St Brendan’s College, Yeppoon, for high school, but said when Year 7 was changed from primary to high, she knew Mitchell would be leaving a year earlier than planned.
While Mitchell is looking forward to his big adventure, Mrs Baker said the reality of the situation started sinking in around December.
“We went to discovery day just before easter and they (Mitchell and a friend) were super pumped, they loved it, they wanted to stay then,” Mrs Baker laughed.
“But there’s a big gap between discovery day and orientation day, and I think they’d started to realise it’s real.”
She said the situation was helped with the two boys met up with some more friends at the orientation in November, who they had not realised would also be attending the same school.
“Like I keep saying to Mitchell, he doesn’t have a choice,” she said.
“We don’t have a choice. To take him to Marist (in Emerald), he’d need to be in Springsure by 7am, which means leaving here by 6.25am.
“Then he would spend hours on the bus - he’d almost spend more time on the bus travelling than he would at school - he wouldn’t be able to play sport, or have time for homework - it’s not a life.”