Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Education Minister James Merlino headlined the list of guests to officially open the school, at the end of the second week of term.
It’s taken the better part of a decade and, despite controversy and pushback from sections of the community, the school is open.
School captain Bethany Gray, who completed Years 7-9 at Shepparton High School, spoke to guests at the opening.
She said she still couldn’t believe the new campus was open and real.
“I’ve been to government schools growing up so this is so far out of the park and to be honest out of our comfort zone for all of us,” she said.
“In Years 7-9 we’re at the individual schools so we saw the opportunities weren’t as great or facilities-wise but now we can do whatever VCE subject we ever wanted, where you used to have to go to a different school to do it.”
She said the small school model, where students are split into smaller groups of a few hundred students, helped “so much”.
“It’s all in houses and neighbourhood so all the younger kids will be together the whole way through to Year 12,” she said.
“We share our own kitchen, we have our own rooftop garden, like I’ve never been so fancy at school.
“I’m going to cook my two-minute noodles with a hot tap, which is just hot automatically, go sit outside, go look at the clouds.”
Ms Gray said it was hard hearing the heated debate around the school.
“It’s hard for us because we knew how amazing it was going to be and they weren’t in the school to start off with so they haven’t seen what we’ve seen growing up,” she said.
“Hopefully people come through and see what it’s made of.”
