Today is an important day for young Territorians and educators as school returns for 2025.
About 34,000 students and 3,500 teachers will return to classrooms across 153 Government schools in the Territory.
Today, more than 150 new teachers will officially start their teaching careers in the Territory.
Minister for Education and Training, Jo Hersey, said it was fantastic to see renewed emphasis on literacy and numeracy in Territory schools.
"To enable our kids to realise the jobs of the future, we must improve academic results," she said.
"I am pleased to see that school improvement priorities have a strong focus on literacy and numeracy.
"Boosting literacy and numeracy in every school is fundamental to delivering high achieving student results. "
Ludmilla Primary School Principal Carol Putica said the school would put an emphasis on reading this year.
"The focus of our improvement plan for this year is reading," she said.
"We use the Read Write Inc program at Ludmilla that puts the teaching of reading at the heart of the school.
"This year, we will extend the program to Year 3 and implement the reading support aspect across all our years because reading is just so important to a student's development and ability to learn.
"This year, our Student Aboriginal Advisory group will support us to ensure we are including culturally appropriate approaches in the development of our learning programs. Programs that will engage, challenge, and inspire our students."
Ms Hersey highlighted that with the return to school comes the return of school zones, and she encouraged motorists to exercise caution driving near schools.
"When you're in a school zone, make sure you're going 40km/h or under, and be safe around all school zones," she said.
Families are reminded to redeem the $200 Back to School Payment Scheme entitlement before the end of Term 1.
The entitlement is available for each student and can be put towards educational goods and services such as uniforms, textbooks, stationery, school excursions and much more.
