Sad farewell for teacher

Peter King was washed out the doors on a river of tears on his last day at Mt Ousley Public School.

The principal of 17 years was given a full farewell assembly and teachers, parents and students struggled to control their emotions as they said goodbye to the man who they said had given them all so much.

Mr King arrived at Mt Ousley Primary School in 1991, with a dream of making his school a place children wanted to go, and where they could learn to celebrate the variety and diversity of mankind.

It was part of Mr King’s belief that “war stops in the school playground.”

By all accounts Mr King led by example, always making time for parents and getting to know the children on a genuinely personal level.

Carol Jackson, whose son Kyle is a Year 6 student at the school, said Mr King talked to the children like equals.

“He seems to know something about each individual child…that is magic,” she said.

Mt Ousley Public School’s P&C president, Karen Evans said Mr King changed her son’s life when the boy transferred to the school, which was already operating at capacity.

Her son was feeling depressed and had struggled at his previous school, but was completely turned around at Mt Ousley, she said.

Similarly when current student Samuel Jakes was diagnosed with cancer Mr King was a godsend.

Samuel’s Mother Soraya Jakes said nurses who visited her son at school during his treatment said they had never met a principal so willing to change everything for a sick child.

Jennifer Rankine, the only teacher still at the school who was there when Mr King arrived, said she ‘couldn’t have asked for a better boss.’

“(He) put me as person first and always trusted I was doing my best,” she said.

Students, teachers and parents stood in a circle and farewelled Mr King one by one, with many tears, hugs and laughter while The Monkees and The Beatles poured form the school’s speakers – a tribute to Mr King’s passion for vintage records.