School’s out for principal

By Kath Gannaway
YERING Primary School principal Max Yardy rang the bell on a 38-year teaching career on Wednesday.
Mr Yardy’s last week at the 39 pupil school was a hectic schedule of administrative i-dotting and t-crossing, interspersed with a farewell dinner, a morning-tea party given by the students and countless heads popping in at his office door to thank him for his eight years at the helm and wish him well in retirement.
From his very first appointment as head teacher of the one-teacher, eight-student Banyena South Primary School in the Wimmera, Mr Yardy has had a strong association with smaller schools.
For the past 27 years he has taught at Yarra Valley schools including Mt Evelyn, Powelltown, Millgrove and Yering with one stint down the line at Manchester Primary School.
Working in small country schools meant everything from checking the toaster for mice each morning during the Wimmera mice plagues of the mid-70s, driving through flood waters for weeks to get to school, and, at Powelltown dealing with the Ash Wednesday fires.
“I had been at the school for less than three weeks before the fires swept through the district,” he recalled.
“The school building was fortunate to be spared even through the school fences and plantation were destroyed.”
Small rural schools have always had a special place in his heart and, while they present their own challenges, Mr Yardy said there were also special benefits.
Teaching in small communities meant being part of their sporting teams, being a volunteer ambulance officer and, in Maffra joining the SES specialist bush rescue unit.
Mr Yardy said his eight years at Yering, working with a hardworking parent club, dedicated staff and great children had been enormously rewarding.
“I look back at all the changes and improvements made since 2000 to make Yering the best equipped small school in the Yarra Valley,” he said, surrounded by students for a farewell photo.
A school crossing for the busy Melba Highway, undercover areas and shade shelters, staff toilets, rainwater tank and vegetable gardens, air conditioning, triple the number of computers and the only interactive whiteboards in each room in the Yarra Valley are among the physical improvements.
Programs such as student leadership the Anzac Commemoration Service at Coldstream each year and student radio presentations on local radio are just a few of the advances made in the classroom.
Officially signing off at 4.37pm – public service time – on Wednesday, Mr Yardy said he would miss the people who had been so much a part of his life for so long, but was looking forward to retirement.
Travel, gardening and just having time to relax and read the paper of a morning are all on his ‘to do’ list for what will almost certainly be a much slower pace for Max Yardy and wife Ann.